ABSTRACT
By depicting Rost van Tonningen's involvement in major Austrian political and financial events, Peter Berger circuitously describes the intriguing story of interwar financial diplomacy, the breakdown of parliamentary democracy, and the rise of fascism. More events and historical figures could be mentioned to account for the length and thoroughness of Berger's biography of Rost van Tonningen. Demonstrating how Rost's dramatic transformation from an agent of neo-liberal Western finance to an extreme Nazi was possible, Berger also makes clear that this transformation was not only due to the persuasive power of political extremism on the interwar European bourgeoisie. Through Rost's transformation, Berger also insinuates that the economic policies of conservative currency reconstruction and fiscal orthodoxy represented the central components of a failed European-wide reactionary movement that attempted to restore the favorable status quo of the prewar era. As these policies failed to tackle the Depression and aggravated the crisis not only in the small economically vulnerable Austria.
