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Chip Wagar


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Topics of conversation:

  • Personal experience in Vienna
  • Ghastly Consequences of World War One and subsequent wars
  • Parallels between World War One and wars after 9/11
  • Misconceptions American have about the First World War
  • World War Two being a continuation of World War One

Chip Wagar grew up in the Adirondacks region of upstate New York in Glens Falls as the oldest of four children. He attended the Austro-American Institute in Vienna during his college years at the George Washington University where he was graduated in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs. At George Washington University and the Austro-American Institute, Chip studied Central and Eastern European politics and history including the Soviet Union. After graduation from college, Chip came to New Orleans to attend Tulane University School of Law from which he was graduated cum laude in 1979. By then, he had developed what proved to be a life-long attachment to the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region where he has lived ever since. Chip Wagar has been a civil litigation trial lawyer for over 30 years and now concentrates his practice in medical malpractice and products liability. He has two adult children, Will and Sarah, who also live in the New Orleans area. An American in Vienna is Chip Wagar’s first novel and contains some autobiographical elements.

An American in Vienna

Chip Wagar
iUniverse (2011)
ISBN 9781450267687
Reviewed by Vicki Landes for ReaderViews (6/11)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com


Synopsis: Andy Bishop's quest begins promisingly when he leaves Columbus, Ohio, in 1914 after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. In Austria, Hungary, his goals are threefold: make contact with distant Austrian relatives, practice his nascent journalistic skills, and discover why his aristocratic ancestor, Matthias zu Windischgrtz, immigrated to America so long ago. The scenery changes drastically as Andy witnesses the last stand of imperial Austrian society. He arrives just three weeks before the assassination of the Kaiser's nephew, the Habsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie. This event sparks the fateful slide toward world war and chaos for both family and friends. Andy's fateful decision to remain in the doomed Habsburg Empire after the war begins-and his irresistible attraction to a young Austrian countess-lead him to Budapest, Rome, and finally Paris, as Europe is convulsed by the greatest war since the defeat of Napoleon. Told from the perspective of Andy Bishop, An American in Vienna presents historical insight into the Austrian court, royal society, and the demise of a once-powerful empire as it becomes embroiled in the Great War.