"Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914 describes how the crowd's shifting cast of characters participated in the making of Hungary inside the increasingly troubled Austro-Hungarian empire.". "Audiences at theaters, fairs, statue raisings, and commemorations of national figures; political rallies; ethnic mobs; May Day celebrations; monarchical festivities; and finally war rallies all take up places in this history. Not only insurgent crowds, but festive ones as well have political and material goals, Freifeld finds. And hope for liberal nationalism, which Hungarian crowds carried from their experience of 1848, thus continued to confront the monarchy, its bureaucracy, and the gentry. The book is a contribution to the research in nationalism, liberalism, and the crowd, as well as Habsburg and Austrian-Hungarian history."--BOOK JACKET.