This book tells the story of eight men and women with deep roots in provincial Hungary. "Hungary" before the First World War meant the eastern half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the second largest state in Europe after Russia. Hungary then was as large as Italy and more populous than Spain. Another Hungary lingers in prewar Hungary's small towns and studies their inhabitants, asking how they earned a living, what they thought about politics, and how they got along with their neighbors, including those who might speak a different language or practice a religion different from their own. This ... More

This book tells the story of eight men and women with deep roots in provincial Hungary. "Hungary" before the First World War meant the eastern half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the second largest state in Europe after Russia. Hungary then was as large as Italy and more populous than Spain. Another Hungary lingers in prewar Hungary's small towns and studies their inhabitants, asking how they earned a living, what they thought about politics, and how they got along with their neighbors, including those who might speak a different language or practice a religion different from their own. This book argues that the history of small towns in Eastern Europe matters. They were not just a dull reflection of the capital city or of western Europe, but interesting and important in their own right. They mattered economically, they mattered culturally, and they mattered politically; their history deserves our attention. Each of the book's eight chapters examines someone born in a small town but eager to act upon a wider stage. They include a garrulous aristocrat, a misunderstood merchant, a tobacco enthusiast, and other figures from the nineteenth-century provinces. One of the central premises of this book is that surprising, interesting, and valuable ideas can sometimes emerge from the most unlikely of places.