In this volume on the comparative study of nobility, historians,
sociologists and anthropologists focus on the different processes of
transformation that aristocratic elites in Europe went through during
the twentieth century. Readers will learn about nobles in northern
Europe (Sweden and Finland), southern Europe (Italy), western Europe
(France, Belgium, the Netherlands) and central Europe (Germany, Austria,
Poland and Hungary). However, because of the comparative structure of
the volume, readers will also sometimes encounter the nobility in
Britain, Russia and the Baltic areas. The authors discuss questions
like: how did noble men and women cope with the rise of totalitarian
regimes and with the dramatic periods of the Second World War and the
Cold War? What was the impact of the Fall of the Berlin Wall? And how
did nobles react to the loss of political and economic privileges? In
spite of all the variety and heterogeneity in wealth, power, prestige,
and public visibility of these nobilities, some remarkable general
trends and patterns emerge from the articles. The fourteen contributions
show how and why relatively many nobles succeeded in staying on top or
in transforming political and economic capital into cultural and
symbolic capital.