I am reading this book now and finding it more persuasive than you apparently in its key arguments. As to whether the different 'peoples' within the AH empire could have formed identities more civic then ethnic - which might have permitted stability of a multinational state, I found this tidbit from your Radojevic review suggestive: "Radojevic shows the official Serbian Army numbers on A-H deserters and they are pathetic: just a couple of hundred out of thousands soldiers who served in A-H units on the Serbian front. Moreover, some of these units were for more than 90% composed of, and led by, the presumably oppressed South Slav members; but they did not rebel nor defect." Doesn't this suggest that many of the South Slavs inside AH had, by 1914 formed identities where their ties to the AH empire (and all that entailed) figured prominently? And their Slovene or Croat or Serb identity figured less prominently?
I am reading this book now and finding it more persuasive than you apparently in its key arguments. As to whether the different 'peoples' within the AH empire could have formed identities more civic then ethnic - which might have permitted stability of a multinational state, I found this tidbit from your Radojevic review suggestive: "Radojevic shows the official Serbian Army numbers on A-H deserters and they are pathetic: just a couple of hundred out of thousands soldiers who served in A-H units on the Serbian front. Moreover, some of these units were for more than 90% composed of, and led by, the presumably oppressed South Slav members; but they did not rebel nor defect." Doesn't this suggest that many of the South Slavs inside AH had, by 1914 formed identities where their ties to the AH empire (and all that entailed) figured prominently? And their Slovene or Croat or Serb identity figured less prominently?
Branko recommended AJP Taylor's (1941) "Habsburg Monarchy" elsewhere.