Oliver Rathkolb

Oliver Rathkolb is a former Head of Department and Professor emeritus at the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna (Austria), chairman of the Vienna Institute of Cultural and Contemporary History (VICCA) and Chairperson, Academic Committee, House of European History, Brussels as well as House of Austrian History, Vienna. He is a fellow of Salzburg Global and the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna.

As a visiting professor he taught at the University of Chicago and was Schumpeter-Professor at Harvard University. Prof. Rathkolb is author of several books focusing on contemporary history as well as editor and co-editor of several studies concerning interdisciplinary questions of contemporary history, european and international history, authoritarianism and democracy, music history and communications/media history. He is the managing editor of the journal “Zeitgeschichte” (Contemporary History).

Among his prize-winning publications are: The Paradoxical Republic. Austria 1945 – 2005, New York – Oxford 2010 (Berghahn Books); Paperback edition 2014, new edition 1945-2020, New York-Oxford 2021. Die Paradoxe Republik. Österreich 1945- 2025, Wien 2025 (Zsolnay Verlag). Ökonomie der Angst. Rückkehr des Nervösen Zeitalters, Wien 2025 (Molden Verlag -Books of the Year in humanities in Austria), with Sybille Steinbacher (ed.), Authoritarian Trends and Parliamentary Democracy in Europe, Göttingen 2025 (Wallstein Publishers).