Lewis's book is at heart a study of Austrian identity formation. It is also a carefully researched and persuasively presented nuanced story of Austrian labor's role in the emergence of coalition government and social partnership. It stresses the international aspects of the early years of the Second Republic which were profoundly affected by the four-power occupation and the Cold War. She demonstrates that Austrian labor policy was made not only in Vienna, but also in Washington, London, Paris, and Moscow. Lewis joins other historians and political scientists who have struggled long and hard to forge a synthesis that integrates the domestic and international forces that shaped the history of these formative years.

Among other aspects, the author wants to demonstrate the leverage of the weak in international politics. Austria deftly exploited its political and economic weakness by exaggerating labor unrest, thereby succeeding in marginalizing the domestic communist opposition, reducing Soviet influence, and increasing its bargaining power vis-à-vis the United States. In the process, Lewis maintains, the foundation of social partnership was laid and with it the basis of that curious mixture of corporate and democratic politics that was to characterize the next four decades of Austrian politics.

Among the many features of Lewis's story, a few appear to the reviewer especially salient. She emphasizes the impact of national socialist rule on postwar Austrian culture and consensus. A majority of Austrians refused to assume responsibility for their role in the Third Reich, claiming to have been the “first victim” of German aggression. The “victim” thesis became one of the pillars of Austrian national identity, remaining largely unchallenged until the Waldheim affair in the second half of the 1980s. Equally important for identity formation was the response of the Soviet-sponsored provisional Renner government and its initial nonrecognition by the western allies. Salvation for the Austrian elites would only lie in maintaining unity and consensus despite their continued ideological differences. Unity was to be secured by the application of the Proporz, a system of distributing ministries according to the perceived strength of the individual parties. It was a concept that became a characteristic of the Austrian political culture and secured the establishment of coalition governments of three licensed parties (Socialists, Conservatives, and Communists). Stalin's hope that the “three party scheme” would result in a viable “Peoples' Front” strategy was disappointed. In the November 1945 election, the Communists suffered a devastating defeat. Never again did the Communists command a significant share of power. But Austria's status remained ambiguous. It was both liberated and occupied, in need of continued “tutelage.” Luckily for Austria, the western powers discovered the strategic importance of the country in their Cold War with the Soviet Union. Using the exaggerated strategic importance that Austria's geographical position provided, its politicians successfully secured Marshall Plan aid quite out of proportion to the size of the country.

One of the most incisive chapters in Lewis's book analyzes in depth the labor leadership's fundamental ideological shift from the belief in the inevitable conflict of class interests that had dominated the First Republic to championship of social harmony and compromise. Their most difficult task, she points out, was to persuade the labor rank and file to accept policies that were both crucial to economic growth and highly unpopular. Lewis demonstrates the shift through a close analysis of five wage and price agreements concluded by the social partners between 1947 and 1951. In July 1947, an Economic Commission was established. It was a quasi-governmental body of representatives from the three Chambers (Labor, Business, and Agriculture) and the Trade Union Federation. Its purpose was to adjust lagging wages to ever-rising prices, primarily by subsidizing food prices through Marshall Plan aid. The wage and price agreements were a valiant but ultimately failed attempt to control the inflationary spiral; however, they prepared the ground for renewal of institutionalized cooperation in the form of the Parity Commission in 1957. Out of institutional failure came institutional success.

It was the fourth wage and price agreement in September-October 1950 that put a temporary end to the patience of the labor rank and file and led to an outburst of unrest. For decades the strike was interpreted as an attempted Communist putsch. In one of the best chapters of the book, which Lewis entitled “The Putsch that never was,” she comes clearly down on the no-putsch side. Close analysis and evidence in the Soviet archives bear her out. The putsch label was, however, useful for the Austrian government in deflating support for the economic strike and destroying any further challenge from the left. The putsch legend was also extremely popular, reflecting an image of Austria as David who had withstood the Soviet Goliath. It undoubtedly served to strengthen the Austrian identity.

Lewis's book is a fitting companion to the works of Günter Bischof, Gerhard Botz, Robert Knight, Anton Pelinka, and Oliver Rathkolb. So pronounced has been their ascendancy in Austrian historiography that one is almost tempted to speak of a “new” orthodoxy. One hopes that the research of this generation of scholars will withstand the onslaught of future revisionist historians.