Welche Grenzen braucht das Buch? Die Regulierung des Buchwesens als Mittel der Selbstkonstruktion der Habsburgermonarchie (1750–1790)
The Regulation of Print as Means of the Self-Construction of the Habsburg Monarchy

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with the role of books in the Habsburg Monarchy during the reign of Maria Theresa (1740–1780) and Joseph II (1766–1790) as a means of nation building. In this sense, we try to show that their ‘book policy’ tended to diminish internal frontiers by aligning the boundaries of the book market with state based frontiers, and by regulating and controlling the production and diffusion of information. The article re-reads and contextualizes their legislation on book culture as a means to culturally, politically and economically unify the Austrian hereditary lands and turn them into a centralized state. The challenge was to bring book culture, hitherto widely controlled by the Catholic Church, under state control, and to provide every single text with a history in order to be able to identify its origin and force book producers to regulate themselves. In addition, state policies put an emphasis on privileging the domestic book market, which had to face strong competition from outside the Habsburg Monarchy. This facilitated both the commercial success of the book business, and better control over the ideological content disseminated through literature.

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