Franz Unger, palaeo-botanist, biologist, cell-researcher, ecologist, geologist, evolutionist and cultural scientist, has often been described as the »Austrian Darwin«. Since he worked before Darwin, his work deserves more than this kind of associative equation, namely a serious scientific analysis through which the multiplicity of Unger's innovative approaches can be located in epistemic contexts. The unity in the approaches of all the essays collected in this volume lies in their concentration on both local and international contexts, debates and knowledge orientations in Unger's work. The multiplicity derives from the interdisciplinary composition of the group of authors and in their differing methodological modes of access to Unger's concepts.