Bruno Kreisky’s Foreign Policy

Despite his significance, the role of Austrian politician Bruno Kreisky remains under-represented in Anglo-American Cold War scholarship. Serving as foreign minister from 1959 to 1966 and chancellor from 1970 to 1983, his political career oversaw seismic developments in both Austria’s postwar recovery and broader international relations with the Middle East, the Communist Bloc, and the United States. In this enlightening and geographically wide-ranging reappraisal of his life and legacy, Bruno Kreisky’s Foreign Policy: A Reassessment seeks to reinstate the global repercussions of Kreisky’s work. Ranging from his involvement in the Marshall Plan to his role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, this volume highlights how Kreisky profoundly reshaped the geopolitical landscape of the modern era.

Günter Bischof is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Orleans. Formerly the Marshall Plan Chair of History and the Director of Center Austria, he is a historian of international history, focusing on American and European diplomatic history of the twentieth century, including Cold War international relations and Austrian foreign policy. He is co-editor of the yearbook Contemporary Austrian Studies (which currently totals thirty-three volumes) and is the author of Relationships/Beziehungsgeschichten: Austria and the United States in the Twentieth Century (Studienverlag 2014), and with Hans Petschar, The Marshall Plan Since 1947: Saving Europe, Rebuilding Austria (Brandstätter 2017).