Inside Austria: New Challenges, Old Demons

Inside Austria is a gripping, in-depth personal report on postwar Austria’s economic and social success story but also on its turbulent political history. How has this small land-locked country emerged as the European Union’s fourth richest member state? Who are the Austrians, one of Europe’s oldest people whose nation-state came into being only after the collapse of the Austro- Hungarian empire in 1918? To what extent have they come to terms with the demons of their recent past: Hitler’s Anschluss, the Waldheim affair and then later Jorg Haider’s disturbing radical right-wing ascendancy in Carinthia? This book is a unique study of the Austrian odyssey, based on a blend of academic research and half a century of personal observation by the Hungarian-born author who as a foreign correspondent and later as a political analyst obtained first-hand information from the politicians who played or are still playing a leading part in the march of events he has described.