Foreword by Neal Acheson Part I: The Capua of Minds Vienna Preserved: the Palimpsest Vienna Liberata: Civic Pride and the Metropolis How to be Viennese Masters and Servants: a Tale of Cognitive Dissonance Love-Hate and Austromasochism Cliches and the Art of Self-Irony Backing into the Future Part II: The Spirit of Place Viennese Topography Notes on Wienerisch and Wienerlieder The Death Cult in Vienna The Life of the Phaeacians Part III: The Ages of the City The Romans on the Danube Light at the End of the Tunnel The Early Habsburgs Humanism, Refofrmation and Counter-Reform