These fourteen essays by leading Austrian historians and political scientists serve as a basic introduction to a small but sometimes trend-setting European country

1: World War I And The First Republic; 1: On the Threshold of the Twentieth Century: State and Society in Austria before World War I; 2: Austria in the First World War, 1914-1918; 3: 12 February 1934: Social Democracy and Civil War; 4: The Christian Corporatist State: Austria from 1934 to 1938; 5: 12 November 1918-12 March 1938: The Road to the Anschluß; 2: World War II; 6: The Emigration and Exile of Austrian Intellectuals; 7: Resistance, Persecution, Forced Labor; 3: The Second Republic; 8: Allied Plans and Policies for the Occupation of Austria, 1938-1955; 9: Austria Under Allied Occupation; 10: The Austrian Economy: Basic Features and Trends; 11: "The Big Two": TheGrand Coalition 1945-1966 and 1987-2000; 12: The Kreisky Era, 1970-1983; 13: Austria and Europe, 1923-2000: A Study in Ambivalence; 14: Austria between 1983 and 2000