26-H201 Vienna: A Biography of One of the “World’s Most Livable Cities” – Joseph F. Patrouch

This course sketches some themes associated with the histories and images of the city of Vienna from prehistoric times through the present. Topics to be covered include Vienna as a Roman military base; the medieval growth of the city; Vienna as a border fortification in wars with the Ottoman Empire; the city as Imperial or princely residence; Vienna and the Danube River; Jewish Vienna; the construction of the Ringstrasse; the Vienna World’s Fair of 1873; Fin-de-siècle Vienna’s cultural flowering; Nazi Vienna and the Battle for the city in WWII; Cold War Vienna; Vienna and the Second Republic; Vienna and the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, and Vienna today: “the world’s most livable city?”

Instructor:  Joseph F. Patrouch

Joseph F. Patrouch is a professor of history at the University of Alberta. After studies at Boston University and the University of California, Berkeley, he has taught Early Modern European History in the US and Canada for over thirty years. He has also taught as a guest professor in Austria, Israel and Poland as well as being a guest researcher in Austria, Czechia and Germany. From 2011-2021 he was director of the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies at U of A.  Professor Patrouch is the author of two monographs on Central European history and translated the book Understanding Vienna: Pathways into the City from German to English. He has also published numerous articles, reviews, an exhibition catalogue, and encyclopedia entries on a variety of topics. In 2022 he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and the Arts, First Class, by the president of Austria.