Biography
Philipp Ther (* 1967) is professor of Central European History at the University of Vienna, where he also founded the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET). Previously, he was a professor of comparative European history at the EUI in Florence. The German original of Europe since 1989: A history (Princeton University Press, 2016) was awarded the non-fiction book prize of the Leipzig Book Fair in 2015. This book was the starting point for a trilogy on the history of transformations, which he continued with How the West Lost the Peace. The Great Transformation since 1989 (Polity Press, 2023) and the „multigraph” In the Storms of Transformation. Two shipyards between socialism and the EU (Toronto UP, 2025).
In his other major research fields, the history of mass flight and migration, and music & history he published The Dark Side of Nation States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe (Berghahn Press, 2014); The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe since 1492 (Princeton UP, 2019), Center Stage: Operatic Culture and Nation Building in 19th Century Central Europe (Purdue University Press, 2014) and most recently Der Klang der Monarchie. Eine musikalische Geschichte des Habsburgerreiches (Suhrkamp, 2025). His books have been translated into a dozen languages. In 2019, he was awarded the Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Research Fund, the highest recognition for scientists in Austria.