1st Edition
Conservatives and Right Radicals in Interwar Europe
This book features a broad range of thematic and national case studies which explore the interrelations and confrontations between conservatives and the radical Right in the European and global contexts of the interwar years.
It investigates the political, social, cultural, and economic issues that conservatives and radicals tried to address and solve in the aftermaths of the Great War. Conservative forces ended up prevailing over far-right forces in the 1920s, with the notable exception of the Fascist regime in Italy. But over the course of the 1930s, and the ascent of the Nazi regime in Germany, political radicalisation triggered both competition and hybridisation between conservative and right-wing radical forces, with increased power for far-right and fascist movements.
The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics, history, fascism, and Nazism.
Introduction
Marco Bresciani
1. "Laboratory for World Destruction": The Habsburg Monarchy and Fascism
Steven Beller
2. Volksdeutsch Revisionism: East Central Europe’s Ethnic Germans and the Order of Paris
Gregor Thum
3. Conservative and Radical Dynamics of Italian Fascism: An (East) European Perspective (1918–1938)
Marco Bresciani
4. The Crisis of Legitimacy and the Rise of the Radical Right in Interwar Yugoslavia (1918–1941)
Mark Biondich
5. Integral Nationalism in Absence of Nation-State: The Case of Ukraine
Oleksandr Zaitsev
6. Catholic Authoritarians or Fascists as Such? The Polish Rightist Subculture Turns Fascist (1919–1939)
Grzegorz Krzywiec
7. Faith, Family and Fatherland: Conservatism and Right Radicalism in Interwar Hungary
Béla Bodó
8. The Romanian Right: Images of Crisis, the Press and the Rise of Fascism
Roland Clark
9. Nationalism and Authoritarianism in Interwar Greece (1922–1940)
Spyridon G. Ploumidis
10. Dynamics of Division: The French Right (1918–1941)
Sean Kennedy
11. Consecrating the Fatherland: Catholicism, Nationalism and Fascism in Spain (1919–1939)
Giorgia Priorelli and Alejandro Quiroga
12. In the Mirror of Fascism: Portugal and the Italian Experience
Giulia Albanese
13. America as Alternative to European Radicalism? The United States and the Transnational Rise of the Right
Kiran Klaus Patel
14. Fascism After Fascism: History and Politics
Guido Franzinetti
Biography
Marco Bresciani is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Florence, Italy. His main research fields are the political and intellectual history of Italian and European socialism, antifascism, and anti-totalitarianism, as well as the political and social history of the post-Habsburg Northern Adriatic and of the post-war ascent of fascism.
"Bresciani’s book makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the highly heterogeneous political Right in interwar Europe. Against the backdrop of the recent rise of right-wing populism in Europe and beyond, this is a particularly timely intervention that explores the complex relationship between conservatism and Right radicalism. The chapters in this book, written by some of the finest historians of their generation, will be of interest to anyone who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of the rise of fascism, notably in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe." — Robert Gerwarth, Director of the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland
"Interwar conservatism and right radicalism appear in this volume as part of an "open system," subject to influences and provoking reactions across ideological positions and national boundaries. The tableau that emerges is of a pluriform Right watching and learning from one another, forming strategic alliances, and fostering similarly strategic enmities. With several provocative interventions—and as many hitherto under- or unexplored periods, places, and transnational connections—the book has a great deal to offer readers seeking to learn more about crises of democracy and the history of the Right more generally." — Holly Case, Professor of History at Brown University, USA
"To assemble a volume so rich in theoretical insights and so wide-ranging in coverage is an impressive achievement. But to do so while also challenging—compellingly—some of the most persistent orthodoxies about fascism and the ‘old’ right or about supposed ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ of interwar radical right-wing politics is a rare feat for which the editor and all authors alike deserve special praise." — Aristotle Kallis, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Keele University, UK
