This is the first systematic history in English of social democracy in all the regions of imperial Austria. The movement dealt with issues of national and women’s oppression, effective organisation of workers’ struggles, and the relationship between reform and revolution. The account focuses on highpoints in class conflict and the validity of the movement’s original contributions to Marxist theory.

The book includes the first comprehensive study of the Jewish Social Democratic Party of Galicia, which fought the exploitation and oppression of Jewish workers, despite the hostility of the General Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria.