From border garrison of the Roman Empire to magnificent Baroque seat of the Hapsburgs, Vienna's fortunes swung between survival and expansion. By the late nineteenth century it had become the western capital of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but the twentieth century saw it degraded to a 'hydrocephalus' cut off from its former economic hinterland. After the inglorious Nazi interlude, Vienna began the long climb back to the prosperous and cultivated city of 1.7 million inhabitants that it is today. Subjected to constant infusions of new, Vienna has both assimilated and resisted cultural influences from outside, creating its own sui generis culture.

Spielman presents the role of the Habsburg court in the rise of Vienna the early modem period. His study clearly shows the extraordinarily complex web of interrelationships and interdependencies between the court, its servants, and the city as each strove to protect its privileges. The author's innovative approach consists in identifying the specific role that the court quartering system played in the expansion of the government's involvement in the development of the city. in so doing, Spielman ties in the two approaches traditionally used in histories of early modem Germany and Austria: the growth of the modem bureaucracy and the development of the Baroque.