He describes the Völkisch movement as a sort of anti-modernist, anti-liberal reaction to the many political, social, and economic changes occurring in Germanic Europe in the late 1800s. Part of his argument is that the rapid industrialization and rise of cities changed the "traditional, rural social order" and ran into conflict with the "pre-capitalist attitudes and institutions" of the area. He described the racially elitist Pan-Germanism movement of ethnic German Austrians as a reaction to Austria not being included in the German Empire of Bismarck.[1]