Description: Prague entered the First World War as the third city of the Habsburg empire, but emerged in 1918 as the capital of a brand new nation-state, Czechoslovakia. Claire Morelon explores what this transition looked, sounded and felt like at street level. Through deep archival research, she has carefully reconstructed the sensorial texture of the city, from the posters plastered on walls, to the shop windows' displays, the badges worn by passers-by, and the crowds gathering for protest or celebration. The result is both an atmospheric account of life amid war and regime change, and a fresh interpretation of imperial collapse from below, in which the experience of life on the Habsburg home-front is essential to understanding the post-Versailles world order that followed. Prague is the perfect case study for examining the transition from empire to nation-statehood, hinging on revolutionary dreams of fairer distribution and new forms of political participation.
Brief description: Claire Morelon is Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Manchester. She is the co-editor of Embers of Empire: Continuity and Rupture in the Habsburg Successor States after 1918 (2018). She has held research fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Padova.
Review Quotes: 'A brilliantly fresh reading of Prague's streets and the lives of its diverse inhabitants during and after the First World War. Morelon weaves a vibrant narrative, drawing on people's sensory experiences to expose the revolutionized character of daily life. Reaching beyond nationalist tropes, she analyzes the changing dynamics of popular patriotism, neighborhood loyalties, expectations of empire, and of the daily struggle to survive.' Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History