Ambassador Martin Weiss and the Embassy congratulate Contemporary Austrian Studies (CAS) for 30 years of scholarship. Contemporary Austrian Studies is a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to the empirical investigation of modern-day Austrian history, politics and society. It has been edited by Professor Günter Bischof at the University of New Orleans' Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies in cooperation with many colleagues from Austria. CAS stresses a broad, inclusive social science approach to the study of twentieth and twenty-first century Austria and aims at combining all social science disciplines within its different academic traditions. It is published jointly by University of New Orleans Press and innsbruck university press (uip).

CAS celebrates 30 years of scholarship this year with the publication of Volume 30 - Visual Histories of Austria, edited by Professor Günter Bischof (Austrian Marshall Plan Center for European Studies) with guest editors Dr. Martin Kofler (Tyrolean Archive of Photographic Documentation and Art - TAP) and Dr. Hans Petschar (Austrian National Library).

In these thirty years, CAS has seen three publishers and a large number of guest editors. The first seventeen volumes were published by Transaction Publishers through Routledge. Volume eighteen to thirty have been published by University of New Orleans Press (UNO Press), and since volume twenty five CAS has been published jointly by UNO Press and innsbruck university press (iup).

The current volume is available directly from the publishers, UNO Press, and innsbruck university press , or from major retailers like Amazon. It analyzes visual histories in 19th and 20th century Austria, from court photography and nature photography to political photography. A single photo studio is analyzed documenting lives in Western Austria as well as a photo archive and its special collections regarding mountains. Imperial Austria is present in the pictures of court photographer Ludwig Angerer. Photos of wars figure heavily in this volume, from the brutal fighting in the Dolomites during WWI to National Socialism, concentration camps and the air war during WWII. Postwar life and the American presence in Austria are documented from the end of the war to the postwar occupation—seen through the lenses of U.S. star photographer Yoichi Okamoto. Also analyzed are cartoons and the role of images in the portrayal of the Austrian nation brand in the United States.