The book primarily looks at the operation of shipping companies in Austria-Hungary while also
providing insight into the phenomenon of emigration during the period of mass migration to the
USA. In terms of time the book primarily looks at the last two decades of the long 19th
century incorporating the period up until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. It was
during this period that emigration from the Habsburg Monarchy reached its peak and it was a
golden era for shipping. As such the book focuses its attention on a relatively narrow set of
selected shipping companies which were the most used for emigration out of the monarchy at the
end of the 19th century. While there were many companies operating in Europe this study
focuses its attention on the most important which were most relevant for the monarchy's
residents. The author has chosen the two largest German shipping lines for his comparison
Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Aktien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) operating a route from Hamburg
and Norddeutsche Lloyd. He primarily compares these two companies with Austria's own Vereinigte
Österreichische Schiffahrts-Aktien-Gesellschaft vormals Austro-Americana &Fratelli Cosulich
(Austro-Americana) and Britain's Cunard Line which operated within the Habsburg market
essentially as a foreign element even though it had acquired a privileged position from the
Hungarian government. A fundamental part of the book then looks at the course of emigrants'
journeys and also at the northern and southern routes for emigrants which logically went via
the northern German ports or via the port cities in the south of the Habsburg Monarchy. The
author focuses in particular on the competition between shipping companies which took place
separately geographically i.e. in the north and in the south separately. There was an evident
overall interconnection of shipping companies in the period prior to the outbreak of the First
World War and agreements directly determined individual factors in the competition between
them these including price of transport frequency and destination of routes from Europe to
the USA comfort levels provided to customers speed of transport and range of services
provided. Despite the determined quotas for numbers of carried passengers and agreements on the
price of ship tickets competitive rivalry between the companies was still ongoing by 1914.
