Healy, Maureen

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Chicago, Ph.D., 2000.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Oregon State University, Department of History, 302B Milam Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331. E-mail—mhealy@oregonstate.edu.

CAREER:

Oregon State University, Corvallis, associate professor of history.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellowship, Oregon State University Center for the Humanities, 2001-02; research scholarship, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, 2003; Herbert Baxter Adams Prize, American Historical Association, 2005; Barbara Jelavich Book Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, 2005; Maria Sibylla Merian Fellowship, University of Erfurt, Germany, 2005; Fulbright German Studies grant, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Maureen Healy received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago in 2000, after which she began teaching at Oregon State University in Corvallis. Her specialty is modern European history, with research focusing on the cultural and social history of Central Europe, including the countries of Poland, Austria, Germany, and the Balkan Peninsula. The core of her work centers on gender and minority issues and the rise and fall of nationalism surrounding the time period and events of World War I.

For Healy's first book, Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I, published in 2004, she was awarded the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize by the American Historical Association and the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, both in 2005.

Harry Ritter, in his critique of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire appearing in History: Review of New Books, said it was "a welcome … contribution to the home-front story of Europe's Great War." In the book Healy examines the effects that World War I had on the home front, especially in Vienna, with war mentality influencing the daily lives of people in their homes, shops, streets, theaters, and schools.

At the beginning of the war, Vienna was a multiethnic society. Although predominantly German, it hosted a large Czech minority. In the early days of the war it had received thousands of refugees, many of them Jewish, from Galicia, the Polish territory annexed by the Austrian Empire during the partitions of Poland in 1772 and 1795. Using archival records, Healy maintains that, out of increasing desperation, the civilian population turned on itself in the struggle for scarce material supplies, eventually including food, because the Austrian authorities not only failed to supply food for the populace but also were unable to create the spirit of sacrifice and resolve needed to sustain the public during a time of war. It is Healy's contention that this internecine fighting, more than the battlefront, was the primary cause of the Habsburg Empire's fall. By the time the state collapsed in 1918, Healy believes, the social fabric of the city had been destroyed from within.

Calling Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire an "impressive study" in his review for Austrian History Yearbook, Mark Cornwall wrote: "Healy lays bare for the first time a mass of political acts on the home front…. This book opens up new horizons on the impact of total war on Austria-Hungary and particularly deepens our understanding of how the Habsburg Empire lost its legitimacy. It is a major contribution to the historiography."

Jovana Knezevic's review in the Journal of Social History said that Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire filled an important scholastic void, calling it a "much-needed, ambitious, and remarkable study." She was pleased by the area of the author's concentration, commenting: "Healy's focus is especially compelling and important in light of the fact that during the war traditional political bodies such as parliament, political parties, and organized interest groups ceased their activities." She added, "This study provokes important questions regarding the relationship of the particular to the general." Knezevic concluded her review on an encouraging note: "One hopes that Healy's work will inspire other scholars of central and eastern Europe in this direction, and thus will mark a powerful beginning of a broader and deeper discourse on the subject of war and society in this region."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, April 1, 2005, Istvan Deak, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total War and Everyday Life in World War I, p. 578.

Austrian History Yearbook, January 1, 2006, Mark Cornwall, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 237.

Central European History, September 22, 2005, Jeremy King, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 675.

German Studies Review, May 1, 2006, Charles Ingrao, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 409.

History: Review of New Books, January 1, 2005, Harry Ritter, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 73.

International History Review, March 1, 2006, C.M. Peniston-Bird, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 199.

International Review of Social History, August 1, 2007, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 339.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, June 22, 2006, Solomon Wank, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 120.

Journal of Modern History, December 1, 2006, Pieter M. Judson, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 993.

Journal of Social History, June 22, 2006, Jovana Knezevic, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 1227.

Slavic Review, December 22, 2005, Gary B. Cohen, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire, p. 884.

ONLINE

History News Network,http://hnn.us/ (December 6, 2005), "Maureen Healy, Oregon State University Historian, Wins Top Book Prize in European History Category."

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (April 1, 2005), Nancy M. Wingfield, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire; (July 1, 2005), Alison Frank, review of Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire.

Oregon State University Web site,http://oregonstate.edu/ (June 5, 2008), author's curriculum vitae.