ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the historiography on the post-World War II quadripartite occupation of Austria. It speculates why in analyses of historical case studies of the United States (US) as an occupation power, as well as in US “nation building” efforts, the successful American occupation regime in postwar Austria is entirely ignored. The chapter discusses the cycles of scholarly preoccupation with the Austrian occupation and notes that the highpoint came with the works of the Austrian “baby boomer” generation in the 1980s. The postwar occupations of Austria are conspicuously absent. The global American base system has correctly been identified as constituting one of the principal assets in the postwar “American empire.” Niall Ferguson sees the cultural Americanization as part of informal, American postwar empire-building, positing “that foreigners will Americanize themselves without the need for formal rule”. In the 1990s/2000s, the third and fourth postwar generations engaged World War II, Holocaust, and memory studies.
