Chapter 3 looks at Plessner’s Limits of Community (1924) and Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951) to show that, despite their conflicting theoretical assumptions, both thinkers arrive at surprisingly similar conclusions. Both fundamentally disagree on various key concepts that shape their theories of tact: alienation, for example, is for Adorno a temporary state of human existence that we need to overcome. For Plessner, by contrast, it is what makes us human in the first place, setting us apart from animals and plants. And yet, both share a suspicion of certain forms of intimacy and touch, and a preference for individual difference over communal identification. In my close analysis of their writing, I argue that Plessner’s and Adorno’s theories of tact contribute to an ethic of indirectness that defies any strategies of incorporation. On a hermeneutic level, they allow us to develop new modes of non-violent contemplation. On a social level, they find their literal realisation in times of a pandemic, when keeping your distance and wearing a mask can be interpreted as a dystopic sign of isolation, while it can also be seen as an expression of cooperation (not fusion), solicitude, and care.

With the conclusion of the First World War the ages of global empires comes to an end and hitherto familiar and trusted ways of governing come to an end. Empires shatter, Kingdoms tumble. The interbellum is the age of mass mobilization of peoples in a host of new states. New political systems come to the fore (socialist, communist and fascist regimes), new concepts (universal suffrage, equal representation, corporatism, etcetera) claim their place in new liberal democracies that pop up throughout the world. New constitutions of a sixth generation - the Leviathan constitutions - enshrine the arrangements needed for these forms of mass mobilization.

Revisiting Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here in the wake of Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency, this chapter argues that the novel is still valuable for gauging the distinct contours of American fascism. On the one hand, the novel provides a remarkably prescient reading of the complex class dynamics and populist coalitions that remain crucial to understanding white nationalist politics and successful neofascist movements. It also strikingly captures the nature of American fascist rhetoric and how it is registered by those outside the fascist “base.” On the other hand, in projecting white Midwestern farmers as the main site of resistance, the novel shows the serious limitations of the early twentieth-century socialist populism that animated Lewis’s political imagination. The chapter concludes with a reflection on possibilities and constraints of populism as an antifascist political frame.

This chapter considers Puccini’s relationship with his native region, Tuscany. It begins with a discussion of how Florence is represented in the comic opera Gianni Schicchi, asking how realistic the depiction of the city is. The author provides a political and social history of the region, starting with the glorious reign of the Medicis and moving on through the Habsburg era to the politics of Puccini’s own time. The chapter discusses agricultural policies in the region, industrial expansion, the emergence of the modern labour movement, uprisings and unrest, and fascist suppression, showing that the Tuscany of Puccini’s time was not the rural idyll depicted in Gianni Schicchi. The chapter also considers the region’s rich artistic culture and the importance of Florence as an intellectual and literary centre.

This chapter considers the relationship between Puccini and politics. It shows that Puccini was an admirer of Mussolini at the beginning of the Fascist period, speculates how his political allegiances might have developed had he lived longer, and asks whether Turandot can be read as a ‘fascist’ opera. It discusses the politicisation of high culture during the composer’s lifetime but shows there is no evidence that the work was intended as a political allegory. Much of the chapter is devoted to a consideration of the issue of politics in Tosca, ranging across themes such as anti-clericalism and whether the figure of Scarpia anticipates a specifically fascist brutality. The author uses Carmine Gallone’s film Avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma as a lens through which to consider these issues. The chapter also considers stagings of the opera that put an explicitly political slant on the work, as well as discussing a variety of political (and purportedly ‘anti-political’) readings of the opera in the Puccini literature.

This chapter situates the present rise of far-right intimidation and attacks against social justice movements in Oregon within the state’s history of white supremacist violence. Utilizing archival research, it elucidates the presence of vigilante activity at the heart of Oregon’s early development, from the genocide of Indigenous peoples to the exclusion of Black people and the persecution of people of Chinese origin. The article then sheds light on a leading exponent of those efforts to create a “white utopia”: the Klan’s idea of securing a white supremacist “Realm” through a complex understanding of vigilantism that includes policing groups, bodies, and space. The chapter further discusses the subsequent development of the City of Portland’s large fascist movement during the 1930s. Lastly, the chapter shows how the growth of the post-war Patriot movement out of the failed interwar fascist movement developed along the same porous boundaries between policing and vigilantism, on the one hand, and Conservative and fascist, on the other, enabling paradoxical partnerships engaged in an increasingly conflictive relation to the state.

This chapter explores the impact of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts or Silver Legion, and the Legion’s place within the broader field of Interwar American extremism, when an undergrowth of xenophobia and antisemitism overtook the landscape of domestic politics. This chapter addresses a previously unknown genocidal dimension of American fascist rhetoric – which, in its violence and its visibility, went further than what even the Nazi regime was advocating at the time. The leading Silver Shirt dailies, most particularly The Liberator, and published interviews with William Pelley in other outlets are examined to reveal the precise nature of this rhetoric, which goes beyond emotional frisson to detailed proposals for programmatic, genocidal action. Genocidal antisemitism was not just the purview of German National Socialists, but was a concept autonomously articulated by fascists on both sides of the Atlantic. What this speaks to is a shared set of agendas: rather strikingly identical ideological precepts rooted in similar national, racial, and particularly religious cultures.

This chapter discusses the Italian critics who wrote about Puccini’s music during his lifetime. Though dilettante writers showered Puccini with praise, more rigorous music critics of his era took a rather more sceptical view of his compositional merits. Puccini’s career coincided with the development of professional music criticism in Italy and also with the rise of musicology as an academic discipline. Significant critics discussed in this chapter include Amintore Galli, Filippo Filippi, Luigi Torchi, and Luigi Alberto Villanis. Particular attention is paid to Fausto Torrefranca, the author of a denunciatory and scathing text called Giacomo Puccini e l’opera internazionale, which blamed Puccini for many of the ills of the modern musical world. Many young critics of the era, such as Torrefranca, Giannotto Bastianelli and Ildebrando Pizzetti, associated Puccini with a backward-looking bourgeoisie and were keen to promote avant-garde Italian music, as well as non-commercial music from the more distant past. Puccini found approval amongst a new generation of pro-Fascist critics during the 1920s. Time and again, Puccini found himself dragged into debates about politics and national identity that went far beyond music.

The epigraph focuses on answering the volume’s question, posed in the Introduction, regarding the degree to which the concept of fascism can be deemed essential or peripheral to the American historical experience, and how serious the threat actually is. The reader comes away from this book with a clear sense of the fascist origins and affiliations of the extremist forces that continue to threaten American democracy. In Fascist Italy, having participated in the March on Rome gave you a special status. The same is true for January 6 and all who conspired in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and assault the Capitol, which is why many Republicans who attended the rally and breached the Capitol are now running for office, many with Trump’s endorsement. The epigraph examines the way in which this volume relates the history of fascism to America and abroad: every iteration of fascism is different, but the removal of rights and the advent of a climate of fear and violence is the constant. That is the lesson of this timely and invaluable book.

While scholars in the United States have long regarded the prospect of “Fascism in America” as unlikely, they have begun to reconsider their views since the rise of Trumpism. In the past half-decade, an extended debate has raged in the USA about whether present-day right-wing political trends should be seen as fascist. To date, however, this debate remains unresolved. The introduction seeks to break this deadlock by surveying the debate’s origins, clarifying its stakes, and assessing its course. It then introduces the volume’s twelve chapters, all of which weigh in on the debate in different ways. They are grouped into four sections that seek to illuminate different aspects of American fascism. These areas of focus are: (1) “Strategic Thinking about Fascism”; 2) “Homegrown Nazis”; 3) “White Antidemocratic Violence and Black Antifascist Activism”; and 4) “Countering Fascism in Culture and Policy”.

This chapter outlines the secular convergence of Italy’s GDP. From the mid-1890s to 1913, the centuries-long economic decline was reversed. Institution-building and time-consistent policies of monetary stability and reduction of the debt-GDP ratio were among the main causes. The convergence record of the fascist years is mixed. As growth-reducing factors, we highlight “prestige policies” leading to an overvalued currency, and autarky. Postwar reconstruction was swift, followed by a quarter-century catch-up growth and cultural renaissance. The 1970s were turbulent years, marked by terrorism and inflation. Growth however continued to show unexpected resilience. Seeds of future weaknesses were nonetheless sown. Social tensions were eased by deficit-financed benefits. In the 1980s growth continued but the ratio of debt to GDP rose from 50 to almost 100 percent.

7. This chapter confronts Dostoevskys abandonment to evil in The Master of Petersburg. It provides a new and detailed reading of the first part of the novels manuscript origins.

As Russia massed troops on Ukraine’s borders in late 2021, few believed that Russia would actually carry out a full-scale invasion. On February 24, 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine along four axes. Contrary to expectations, Ukraine put up a spirited response and Russia’s attack stalled. The West enacted extensive sanctions and provided arms to Ukraine. By the summer of 2022 the war bogged down, with Russia in control of roughly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. Both sides appeared committed to pursuing success on the battlefield rather than the bargaining table. The war was turning into a contest of logistics, resupply, and endurance.