Uncover the roots of modern identity with Stefan Jonsson’s pivotal study on Robert Musil. Examining Musil’s Austria, a pioneering post-imperial society, this book illuminates the historical struggles with nationalism and the fluid nature of selfhood. Discover how Musil’s literary genius traced the decline of fixed identities and envisioned a new subjectivity resistant to assimilation. Essential for scholars and students of cultural theory, intellectual history, and literary criticism seeking profound insights into Western modernism and the formation of human subjectivity.