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Description of  Finding Order in Diversity: Religious Toleration in the Habsburg Empire, 1792 1848 (Central European Studies)

Finding Order in Diversity: Religious Toleration in the Habsburg Empire, 17921848 covers the tumultuous period in the Habsburg Empire from Joseph IIs failed reforms through the Revolutions of 1848, documenting the ongoing struggle between religious activism and civil peace. In the name of stability, the Habsburg Empire sidelined Catholic activists and promoted religious toleration during this era in which Austria was an international symbol of conservatism and other states engaged in strident confessional politics. Austrias well-known fear of disorder and revolution in this notoriously conservative regime extended to Catholics, and the state utilized the censors and police to institutionalize religious toleration, which it viewed as essential to law and order, and to tame religious passions, which officials feared could mobilize public opinion in unpredictable directions. Read more