Klautke, E; (2018) Red Vienna, White Socialism, and the Blues: Ann Tizia Leitich's America. [Review]. Central Europe , 16 (2) pp. 138-140. 10.1080/14790963.2019.1583954.

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Abstract

A comprehensive study on Austrian images and perceptions of America in the first half of the twentieth century does not exist: so far, Austrian authors have most often been treated as part of ‘German culture’. McFarland’s book tries fill to this gap, but succeeds only partly, because of his exclusive focus on Leitich’s life and works. He shows that Austrian authors, not only Ann Tizia Leitich, contributed greatly to the debates about Americanisation in the inter-war period – next to Zweig and Salten, Adolf Loos, Otto Bauer or Roda-Roda come to mind. Still, these contributions did not produce a peculiarly Austrian image of America. A more thorough contextualization of Leitich’s writings on America could have shown to what extent she repeated well-established views and clichés that could be found not only in German travel literature and journalism, but throughout Europe. Surprisingly, McFarland makes little use of the specialized secondary literature – German-language studies on Americanisation and Americanism¬ are not listed in the bibliography –, and thus missed a chance to establish a more comprehensive, comparative perspective on his topic.

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