The nineteenth century witnessed a fundamental reworking of Europe's political order. Scholars have devoted considerable attention to many aspects of this process, from the rise of constitutional and parliamentary regimes to the influence of nationalism. They have been less attentive, however, to other developments such as the evolution of administrative theory and practice, especially in the context of urban municipal government. How, for example, did the extension of state prerogatives and power claims affect the nature and function of municipal administrations? Did the growing degree of administrative bureaucratization and professionalization make municipal officials mainly executors of decisions made elsewhere, or did they exercise meaningful influence over policy formation and implementation?

Klaus-Gert Lutterbeck pursues precisely these sorts of questions in his case study of municipal administration in nineteenth-century Strasbourg, a modestly revised version of a Habilitationsschrift presented to Greifswald University in 2008. The choice of Strasbourg, the seat of a French département between 1800 and 1870 and the capital of German Alsace-Lorraine from 1870 to 1918, enables him to explore changes on both sides of the Rhine, even though this is not intended as a comparative investigation. As his title intimates, however, Lutterbeck does wish to break new methodological ground. On the one hand, he wants to show how political scientists can improve upon Weberian-inspired notions of “modern” bureaucracy and the public good by analyzing them in specific historical contexts. On the other hand, he seeks to enrich current approaches to intellectual history, and political ideas in particular, by concentrating on actual administrative practice and the habitus of Strasbourg's public officials. Drawing on his scrutiny of archival records and an impressive array of published sources, Lutterbeck then asserts that local, rather than regional or national conceptions of Gemeinwesen (understood both as community and public good) largely drove municipal administrative activity in Strasbourg. Indeed, its mayors were hardly mere executors of other authorities' policies. They implemented directives coming from above in accordance with specific local needs and interests. Moreover, seeing themselves both as the city's representatives and its advocates, they increasingly took advantage of their real power to find local solutions to municipal problems.

Lutterbeck begins by sketching a history of early modern and revolutionary Strasbourg (Chapter 2). This shows how the rationalizing and, eventually, centralizing forces unleashed by the French Revolution affected Strasbourg's municipal government. More critically, it gives readers a sense of Strasbourg's proud history as an independent republic and free royal city before 1789, which anchored conceptions of Gemeinwesen and local identity throughout the nineteenth century (as we see later in the celebration of civic pride during the 1840 Gutenberg festival and the protection of “old Strasbourg” in post-1871 urban development plans). Chapters 3 and 4 examine nineteenth-century developments, first in French, then in German Strasbourg. Lutterbeck points out how both the French and German states used powers of appointment and oversight to constrain municipal autonomy. They also symbolically marked city space with representational structures, such as the Orangerie and the Statthalter's palace, to convey Strasbourg's place in the new political hierarchies. Nevertheless, Lutterbeck contends, in dealing with urban concerns, the real initiative lay with Strasbourg's mayors, aided by their assistants and city councilors. This is especially clear regarding municipal social policy: whether dealing with poverty and begging, unemployment and housing, the mayors—Hermann and de Ketzinger, de Turckheim and Schützenberger, Kratz and Coulaux, Back and Schwander—led the way. They set up workshops and workers' colonies, promoted credit unions and bread price supports, and established citywide employment bureaus and private—public partnerships for managing municipal utilities. This amazing level of initiative and innovation (cf. provisions for public education in the 1830s and the post-1900 system of poor relief), Lutterbeck reveals, owed much to the mayors' pride: either their personal amour propre for Strasbourg (before 1870) or their sense of professional obligation to the city and its inhabitants (after 1870).

Overall, this is a fine study. Lutterbeck's wide field of vision is informative. It also helps him demonstrate the considerable room for independent and, therefore, political, action available to municipal officials in both France and Germany. Other claims, however, ultimately lack support. Missing, above all, is a more systematic and penetrating investigation of national—municipal relations that could substantiate Lutterbeck's bald assertion that whether Strasbourg belonged to France or Germany was largely irrelevant to how municipal officials acted (414). One is also left wondering just how unique Strasbourg's experiences were, especially in terms of the role played by civic pride in shaping municipal administrative praxis in the short and long term. Finally, although this analysis works nicely as sociocultural history, I am not yet swayed that it is also intellectual history.