The United States and the Burgenland, 1918–1920

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 39-58
Author(s):  
Jon D. Berlin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Will ◽  
Paris Peace Conference ◽  
The Many

Among the many delimitations determined by the Paris Peace Conference was the rectification of the Ausgleich frontier of 1867 between Austria and Hungary. Article 27, paragraph 5, of the Treaties of St. Germain and Trianon detached from the former Kingdom of Hungary the German-speaking western districts of the Hungarian Counties of Moson (Wieselburg), Sopron (Ödenburg), and Vas (Eisenburg). This region, then known as German West Hungary and subsequently as the Burgenland, had been the object of dispute between Austria and Hungary in the immediate postwar years. In the interval between the collapse of the Dual Monarchy in the autumn of 1918 and the Treaty of Trianon in June, 1920, the reactions of American representatives in Central Europe varied from advocation of the union of West Hungary with Austria to admonitions that the proposal was a serious miscalculation because the will of the inhabitants had not been ascertained and because historic and economic principles had been given only cursory consideration. In short, American observations mirrored the incertitude surrounding the West Hungarian controversy.

Austrian Neutrality: The Early Years, 1955–1958

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 216-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Harrod
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The West ◽  
East And West ◽  
Soviet Invasion

Austria's status of neutrality contended with crises almost immediately after its founding along with the 1955 State Treaty. First, during the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October 1956, Austrian neutrality faced the threat of conflict when Soviet-Hungarian clashes spilled over into Austria. Then, in July 1958, Austrian neutrality contended with more benign, but nonetheless disturbing, provocations from the Cold War's Western superpower, the United States. As U.S. military planes transited Austria in broad daylight on their way to Lebanon, the cozy, covert Austro-American relationship became all too overt. Although many Austrians believed neutrality would end foreign (particularly Soviet) domination and would ensure an ultimate withdrawal from global upheavals, these events showed that neutrality by itself could not remove the strategic implications inherent in Austria's position in Cold War Central Europe. Indeed, partisan strategic calculations in both East and West had played a significant role in creating Austrian neutrality. As a result, preserving both Austria's neutrality and its links to the West required delicate maneuvering by a small, poorly defended country amid Cold War crosscurrents of Eastern threats and Western sympathies. Already in its early years, Austrian neutrality proved to be less of the holiday from history that many Austrians expected during the festive mood of May 1955.

Virtues and Vices of Government Control

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Goldsmith ◽  
Tim Wu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Government Control ◽  
The West ◽  
Spare Time ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many

Pierre Omidyar’s self-composed one-line autobiography reads: “Technologist, founder of eBay, trying to make the world a better place.” As his life’s progression suggests, of the many 1990s Internet billionaires, Omidyar’s disposition and outlook may most truly reflect the ethos of the West Coast. During his early “technologist” period he had a pony tail, wore aviator sunglasses, and worshipped the Apple Macintosh. It was during this period, in 1995, that he started eBay in his spare time, as a kind of hobby. “It was just an idea that I had, and I started it as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my day job.” In media legend the inspiration was his fiancée, Pam, who wanted to meet like-minded collectors of PEZ dispensers. But Omidyar’s account of his company’s origins emphasizes a different point. “The whole idea there was just to help people do business with one another on the Internet. And people thought it was impossible because how could people on the Internet—remember this is 1995— how could they trust each other? How could they get to know each other? And I thought that was silly. . . . [P]eople are basically good [and] honest.” It didn’t take long for eBay to realize that not everyone was good and honest: As this chapter shows, eBay quickly learned that to prevent fraud, enforce its contracts, and ensure stability in its auction services, it would depend critically on government coercion and the rule of law provided by a stable country like the United States. These are a few of the many complex benefits that only territorial sovereigns can bring, and without which most aspects of the Internet that we love and cherish would not exist. In this chapter and throughout part 3, we study these largely hidden virtues of government control of the Internet. As the story of China has already made clear, and as we discuss further in what follows, government control of the Internet is not always a happy prospect, for governments often rule unwisely and often clash with one another in destructive ways. Our aim in this part is to give a balanced account of these virtues and vices, and to show how the future of the Internet will be shaped by domestic politics and international relations, as interest groups and countries fight for control and influence over the once-borderless medium.

Applying the Devil's Works in a Holy Cause: Working-Class Popular Culture and the Salvation Army in the United States, 1879-1900

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Salvation Army ◽  
Public Meeting ◽  
The Many ◽  
Sunday Evening

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”

Mafias on the Move

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Varese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
The United States ◽  
The West ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
The North ◽  
Economic Transformations ◽  
At Will

Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As this book explains, the truth is more complicated. The author has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. The book spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, the book charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. The book explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. A pioneering chapter on China examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. This book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.

“Floating Melodies and Memories” of the Terezín Memorial

Transfers ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-141
Author(s):  
Chia-ling Lai
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Czech Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Concentration Camp ◽  
Dark Tourism ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Will To Live ◽  
Worldwide Phenomenon ◽  
The Will ◽  
Musical Heritage

As Andrea Huyssen observes, since the 1990s the preservation of Holocaust heritage has become a worldwide phenomenon, and this “difficult heritage” has also led to the rise of “dark tourism.” Neither as sensationally traumatic as Auschwitz’s termination concentration camp in Poland nor as aesthetic as the forms of many modern Jewish museums in Germany and the United States, the Terezín Memorial in the Czech Republic provides a different way to present memorials of atrocity: it juxtaposes the original deadly site with the musical heritage that shows the will to live.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geir Lundestad
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Modernization

There are no laws in history. Realists, liberals, and others are both right and wrong. Although no one can be certain that military incidents may not happen, for the foreseeable future China and the United States are unlikely to favor major war. They have cooperated well for almost four decades now. China is likely to continue to focus on its economic modernization. It has far to go to measure up to the West. The American-Chinese economies are still complementary. A conflict with the United States or even with China’s neighbors would have damaging repercussions for China’s economic goals. The United States is so strong that it would make little sense for China to take it on militarily. There are also other deterrents against war, from nuclear weapons to emerging norms about international relations. It is anybody’s guess what will happen after the next few decades. History indicates anything is possible.

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