Vienna a Cultural and Literary History

From border garrison of the Roman Empire to magnificent Baroque seat of the Habsburgs, Viennas fortunes have swung between survival and expansion. By the late nineteenth century it had become the western capital of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but the twentieth century saw it degraded to a hydrocephalus cut off from its former economic hinterland. After the inglorious Nazi interlude, Vienna escaped from four-power-occupation in 1955 and began the long climb back to the prosperous and cultivated city of 1.7 million inhabitants that it is today.