It is one of the great ironies of the history of fascism that, despite their fascination with ultra-nationalism, its adherents understood themselves as members of a transnational political movement. While a true “Fascist International” has never been established, European fascists shared common goals and sentiments as well as similar worldviews. They also drew on each other for support and motivation, even though relations among them were not free from misunderstandings and conflicts. Through a series of fascinating case studies, this expansive collection examines fascism’s transnational dimension, from the movements inspired by the early example of Fascist Italy to the international antifascist organizations that emerged in subsequent years.

From the Occupy protests to the Black Lives Matter movement and school strikes for climate action, the twenty-first century has been rife with activism. Although very different from one another, each of these movements has created alliances across borders, with activists stressing that their concerns are not confined to individual nation states. In this book, Daniel Laqua shows that global efforts of this kind are not a recent phenomenon, and that as long as there have been borders, activists have sought to cross them. Activism Across Borders since 1870 explores how individuals, groups and organisations have fostered bonds in their quest for political and social change, and considers the impact of national and ideological boundaries on their efforts. Focusing on Europe but with a global outlook, the book acknowledges the importance of imperial and postcolonial settings for groups and individuals that expressed far-reaching ambitions. From feminism and socialism to anti-war campaigns and green politics, this book approaches transnational activism with an emphasis on four features: connectedness, ambivalence, transience and marginality. In doing so, it demonstrates the intertwined nature of different movements, problematizes transnational action, discusses the temporary nature of some alliances, and shows how transnationalism has been used by those marginalized at the national level. With a broad chronological perspective and thematic chapters, it provides historical context, clarifies terms and concepts, and offers an alternative history of modern Europe through the lens of activists, movements and campaigns.

How do stories of particular events turn into global myths, while others fade away? What becomes known and seen as a global iconic event? In Stories without Borders, Julia Sonnevend considers the ways in which we recount and remember news stories of historic significance. Focusing on journalists covering the fall of the Berlin Wall and on subsequent retellings of the event in a variety of ways - from Legoland reenactments to slabs of the Berlin Wall installed in global cities - Sonnevend discusses how certain events become built up so that people in many parts of the world remember them for long periods of time. She argues that five dimensions determine the viability and longevity of international news events. First, a foundational narrative must be established with certain preconditions. Next, the established narrative becomes universalized and a mythical message developed. This message is then condensed and encapsulated in a simple phrase, a short narrative, and a recognizable visual scene. Counter-narratives emerge that reinterpret events and in turn facilitate their diffusion across multiple media platforms and changing social and political contexts. Sonnevend examines these five elements through the developments of November 9, 1989 - what came to be known as the fall of the Berlin Wall. Stories Without Borders concludes with a discussion of how global iconic events have an enduring effect on individuals and societies, pointing out that after common currencies, military alliances, and international courts have failed, stories may be all that we have to bring hope and unity.

This volume investigates a galaxy of diverse networks and intellectual actors who engaged in a broad political environment, from conservatism to the most radical right, between the World Wars. Looking beyond fascism, it considers the less-investigated domain of the 'Latin space', which is both geographical and cultural, encompassing countries of both Southern Europe and Latin America. Focus is given to mid-level civil servants, writers, journalists and artists and important 'transnational agents' as well as the larger intellectual networks to which they belonged. The book poses such questions as: In what way did the intellectuals align national and nationalistic values with the project of creating a 'Republic of Letters' that extended beyond each country’s borders, a 'space' in which one could produce and disseminate thought whose objective was to encourage political action? What kinds of networks did they succeed in establishing in the interwar period? Who were these intellectuals-in-action? What role did they play in their institutions’ and cultural associations’ activities? A wider and intricate analytical framework emerges, exploring right-wing intellectual agents and their networks, their travels and the circulation of ideas, during the interwar period and on a transatlantic scale, offering an original contribution to the debate on interwar authoritarian regimes and opening new possibilities for research.

Nordic Fascism is the first comprehensive history in English of fascism in the Nordic countries. Transnational cooperation between radical nationalists has especially been the case in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, where fascism has not only developed through interdependent processes but also through interactions between and beyond national boundaries, and where “racial relationship” has been a core argument. With chapters ranging from the inception of fascism in the interwar years up to the present day, this book offers the first fragments of an entangled history of Nordic fascism. It illuminates how The North occupies a special place in the fascist imagination, articulating ideas about the Nordic people resisting the supposed cultural degeneration, replacement, or annihilation of the white race. The authors map ideological exchange between fascist organisations in the Nordic countries and outline past and present attempts at pan-Nordic state building. This book will appeal to scholars of fascism and Nordic history, and readers interested in the general history of fascism.

There was no representative fascist movement during interwar Europe and there is much to be learned from where fascism 'failed', relatively speaking. So Nathaniël D. B. Kunkeler skilfully argues in Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands, the first in-depth analysis of Swedish and Dutch fascism in the English language. Focusing on two peripheral – and therefore often overlooked – fascist movements (the Swedish National Socialist Workers' Party and the Dutch National Socialist Movement), this sophisticated study de-centres contemporary fascism studies by showing how smaller movements gained political foothold in liberal, democratic regimes. From charismatic leaders and the rallies they held to propaganda apparatus and mythopoeic props seized by ordinary people, Making Fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands analyses the constructs and perceptions of fascism to highlight the variegated nature of the movement in Europe and shine a spotlight on its performative process. Drawing on a wealth of archival material and using a highly innovative methodology, Kunkeler provides a nuanced analysis of European fascism which allows readers to rediscover the experimental character of far-right politics in interwar Europe.

This book compares the Italian Fascist and the Spanish Falangist political cultures from the early 1930s to the early 1940s, using the idea of the nation as the focus of the comparison. It argues that the discourse on the nation represented a common denominator between these two manifestations of the fascist phenomenon in Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain. Exploring the similarities and differences between these two political cultures, this study investigates how Fascist and Falangist ideologues defined and developed their own idea of the nation over time to legitimise their power within their respective countries. It examines to what extent their concept of the nation influenced Italian and Spanish domestic and foreign policies. The book offers a four-level framework for understanding the evolution of the fascist idea of the nation: the ideology of the nation, the imperial projects of Fascism and Falangism, race and the nation, and the place of these cultures in the new Nazi continental order. In doing so, it shows how these ideas of the nation had significant repercussions on fascist political practice.

Visualizing Fascism argues that fascism was not merely a domestic menace in a few European nations, but arose as a genuinely global phenomenon in the early twentieth century. Contributors use visual materials to explore fascism's populist appeal in settings around the world, including China, Japan, South Africa, Slovakia, and Spain. This visual strategy allows readers to see the transnational rise of the right as it fed off the agitated energies of modernity and mobilized shared political and aesthetic tropes. This volume also considers the postwar aftermath as antifascist art forms were depoliticized and repurposed in the West. More commonly, analyses of fascism focus on Italy and Germany alone and on institutions like fascist parties, but that approach truncates our understanding of the way fascism was indebted to colonialism and internationalism with all their attendant grievances and aspirations. Using photography, graphic arts, architecture, monuments, and film—rather than written documents alone—produces a portable concept of fascism, useful for grappling with the upsurge of the global right a century ago—and today. Contributors. Nadya Bair, Paul D. Barclay, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Maggie Clinton, Geoff Eley, Lutz Koepnick, Ethan Mark, Bertrand Metton, Lorena Rizzo, Julia Adeney Thomas, Claire Zimmerman

This book takes up the stimuli of new international historiography, albeit focusing mainly on the two regimes that undoubtedly provided the model for Fascist movements in Europe, namely the Italian and the German. Starting with a historiographical assessment of the international situation, vis-à-vis studies on Fascism and National Socialism, and then concentrate on certain aspects that are essential to any study of the two dictatorships, namely the complex relationships with their respective societies, the figures of the two dictators and the role of violence. This volume reaches beyond the time-frame encompassing Fascism and National Socialism experiences, directing the attention also toward the period subsequent to their demise. This is done in two ways. On the one hand, examining the uncomfortable architectural legacy left by dictatorships to the democratic societies that came after the war. On the other hand, the book addresses an issue that is very much alive both in the strictly historiographical and political science debate, that is to say, to what extent can the label of Fascism be used to identify political phenomena of these current times, such as movements and parties of the so-called populist and souverainist right.

This book is the first conceptual and comparative empirical work on the relation between corporatism and dictatorships, bringing both fields under a joint conceptual umbrella. It operationalizes the concepts of social and political corporatism, diffusion and critical junctures and their particular application to the study of Fascist-Era dictatorships. The book’s carefully constructed balance between theory and case studies offers an important contribution to the study of dictatorships and corporatism. Through the development of specific indicators in ‘critical junctures’ of regime change and institutionalization, as well as qualitative data based on different sources such as party manifestos, constitutions and constitutional reforms, expert commissions and the legislation that introduces corporatism, this book traces transnational sources of inspiration in different national contexts. By bringing together a number of both established and new voices from across the field, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of fascism, dictatorship and modern European politics.