Klemens von Metternich played an important role as leader of the Austrian bureaucrats and diplomats in supporting construction of the Suez Canal. He participated in many ways, often informal ones, which before 1848 resulted from his political circumspection and afterward from the fact that he was just a private individual. His so-to-speak informal diplomacy is interesting not only because it discloses the high level of interest he and other Austrian dignitaries paid to the issue but also because it reveals how accessible Metternich was to those involved in the project regardless of nationality, political leanings, and religion. Metternich's interest in the Suez Canal brought him into contact with Europeans as well as Ottomans, conservatives as well as liberals, and even Saint-Simonians: in other words, all who wished to cooperate for the benefit of central Europe and beyond.

The rising German interest in rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust has been accompanied by an emphasis on their exceptionality among the wartime German population. Seen as aberrations, rescuers are used to present a simplified generalization of the German majority’s wartime conduct by defining what it was not. This article argues that this view, as well as the common claim that rescue and rescuers of Jews were “forgotten” in the postwar Germanys, are based on a certain interpretative model concerning the relationship between exception and rule. I trace the different uses of this model and show that from 1945 to the present, many Jewish and non-Jewish Germans employed variously defined exceptions to trace and determine one's preferred image of the majority—as an object of desire or critique. The article presents the different conceptualizations and idealizations of rescue and their functions in imagining a collective self in commemorative and historiographical portrayals of past and current German societies.

How did early modern sovereigns establish authority over newly acquired territories? This is the question behind this article which examines the beginning of Austrian rule in the Southern Netherlands after the Peace of Utrecht 1713. Transfers of sovereignty like these marked the end of international conflicts and lead to the change or reinforcement of the social and political order within affected territories. Therefore, their analysis offers new insight into early modern state building. To achieve this, the article first offers an overview of the events before and after the transfer of sovereignty. This is followed by a closer look at the vital role of the relationship between the local church and the new ruler. Finally, a spotlight will be cast on a tax called Pain d'Abbaye, which serves as a example for an empowering interaction that helped to create a stable relationship between the new Lord and his new subjects.