Photo of John W Boyer
John W. Boyer Senior Advisor to the President of the University
On Research Leave through December 2024
 Office: Edward Levi Hall, room 511 Mailbox 122

 Phone: 773-702-3366 Email Interests:

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century European political and cultural history, particularly in Germany and the Habsburg Empire; religion and politics in modern European history; the history of the universities
Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History and the College

University of Chicago, PhD '75

BIOGRAPHY

My research and teaching focus on the history of modern Europe, especially on the states, the peoples, and the societies of Central Europe since 1700. My special teaching interests are German history from 1740 to 1918; the history of the Hapsburg Empire between 1648 and 1918, and the history of Austria from 1918 to the present; religion and politics in modern European history; and the history of European and American universities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In recent years my work has dealt with the history of the University and with the history of the Habsburg Empire and Republican Austria.  I published The University of Chicago: A History (University of Chicago Press, 2015), and I have recently completed the Austria, 1867–1955 volume for the Oxford History of Modern Europe series, published by Oxford University Press in late 2022. 

I am now working on a history of Religion and Politics in Modern European History from 1789 to 1960 for Princeton University Press. 

With Jan E. Goldstein and Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, I am also an editor of The Journal of Modern History.

Recent Research / Recent Publications

Books and Essays on Central European History and Modern European History
  • Austria, 1867-1955. Oxford History of Modern Europe Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
  • Karl Lueger (1844–1910). Christlichsoziale Politik als Beruf. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2009.
  • Culture and Political Crisis in Vienna: Christian Socialism in Power, 1897–1918. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
  • Political Radicalism in Late Imperial Vienna: Origins of the Christian Social Movement, 1848–1897. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
  • Coeditor (with Jan E. Goldstein). Nineteenth-Century Europe: Liberalism and Its Critics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
  • Coeditor (with Jan E. Goldstein). Twentieth-Century Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • "Die Gründung der Republik (1918)." In 100 Jahre Republik: Meilensteine und Wendepunkte 1918–1920. Edited by Andreas Huber. Vienna, 2020.
  • "From an Absolutist to a Constitutional State: The Political System." In Franz Joseph 1830–1916. Edited by Karl Vocelka and Martin Mutschlechner, 34–37. Vienna: Brandstätter, 2016.
  • "Badeni and the Revolution of 1897." In Bananen, Cola, Zeitgeschichte: Oliver Rathkolb und das lange 20. Jahrhundert. Edited by Lucile Dreidemy et al. 2 vols. Vienna: Böhlau, 2015. Vol. 1, 69–84.
  • "Power, Partisanship, and the Grid of Democratic Politics: 1907 as the Pivot Point of Modern Austrian History." Austrian History Yearbook 44 (2013): 148–74.
  • "Richard Schmitz and the Tradition of Imperial Catholic Politics in Austria 1907–1934." Demokratie und Geschichte. Jahrbuch des Karl von Vogelsang-Institutes 13/14 (2009/2010): 95–134.
  • "The 'Collectivism of Democracy': Mass Politics in Vienna and Chicago, 1890–1918." Jahrbuch des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 62/63 (2006/2007): 9–49.
  • "Tradition und Wandel—Die Christlich Soziale Partei am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges." Demokratie und Geschichte. Jahrbuch des Karl von Vogelsang-Institutes 9/10 (2005/2006): 73–99.
  • "Political Catholicism in Austria, 1880-1960." Contemporary Austrian Studies 13 (2004): 6–36.
  • "Silent War and Bitter Peace: The Austrian Revolution of 1918." Austrian History Yearbook 34 (2003): 1–56.
  • "Wiener Konservatismus vom Reich zur Republik: Ignaz Seipel und die österreichische Politik." In Konservative Profile: Ideen und Praxis in der Politik zwischen FM Radetzky, Karl Kraus und Alois Mock. Edited by Ulrich E. Zellenberg, 341–361. Graz: Ares, 2003.
  • "Catholics, Christians, and the Challenges of Democracy: The Heritage of the Nineteenth Century." In Christdemokratie in Europa im 20. Jahrhundert. Edited by Michael Gehler, Wolfram Kaiser, and Helmut Wohnout, 23–59. Vienna: Böhlau, 2001.
  • "Religion and Political Development in Central Europe around 1900: A View from Vienna." Austrian History 
Yearbook 25 (1994): 13–57.
  • "Christian Socialism under the Empire. Some Reflections." In Geschichte Zwischen Freiheit und Ordnung, 57–74. Graz: Styria, 1991.
  • "Some Reflections on the Problem of Austria, Germany, and Mitteleuropa." Central European History 22 (1989): 
301–15.
  • "Austrian Catholics and the World: Facing Political Turmoil in the Early Twentieth Century." In The Mirror of History, 315–352. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 1988.
  • Austria in the 1980s: Heritage of the Past, Contours of the Future. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, 1987.
  • "The End of an Old Regime: Visions of Political Reform in Late Imperial Austria." Journal of Modern History 58 (1986): 159–93.
  • "Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews." Yearbook: The Leo Baeck Institute 26 (1981): 125–44.
  • "Veränderungen im politischen Leben Wiens: Die Grossstadt Wien, der Radikalismus der Beamten und die Wahlen von 1891." Jahrbuchdes Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien 36/37 (1980/1981): 95–172/117–76.
  • "Freud, Marriage and Late Viennese Liberalism: A Commentary from 1905." Journal of Modern History 50 (1978): 72–102.
  • "A. J. P. Taylor and the Art of Modern History." Journal of Modern History 49 (1977): 40–72.
On the History of the University of Chicago

The following papers are published in the College's Occasional Papers on Higher Education Series. 

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