Thomas Albrich, Klaus Eisterer, Michael Gehler, and Rolf Steininger, eds., Österreich in den Fünfzigern (Innsbruck-Vienna: Österreichischer Studien Verlag, 1995). and Wolfgang Kos and Georg Rigele, Inventur 45/55 (Vienna: Sonderzahl Verlagsgesellschaft, 1996).

The mid-1990s have provided ample opportunity for a sober re-evaluation of both Austria’s recent and distant pasts. Because a large segment of the Austrian population experienced the watershed years 1945 and 1955 firsthand, and because these years have formed points of orientation for a broad, sense of contemporary Austrian identity, examination of this period probably attracted a greater degree of interest—and along with it, a higher potential for controversy. In several ways, Susanne Rieser’s work on feature film and the imaging of Austrian identity forms an effective linchpin for the collection’s various sub-themes. Contributions dealing with the efforts of the Austrian authorities to normalize relations with neighboring lands, as well as to negotiate the return of Austria’s full sovereignty in the context of the early Cold War, take the reader into the territory of high politics and traditional diplomatic history.