David Broder, who teaches our new Twentieth-Century Europe course, has just published his new book Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy.
A study of Italy’s neo- and post-fascist movements since the fall of the regime, it explains a generational change on the far-right — with Meloni’s experiences growing up in the 1990s distinguishing her from both the defeated fascists of 1945 and militants from the Years of Lead. Yet while the ambitions and modes of action have changed, fascist ways of talking about national identity and history have taken new form — from ethnic ideas of the homogeneous national community to the accusations against “financiers” and “Marxists” supposedly plotting its destruction.
Mussolini’s Grandchildren explores the history of the “party of the flame,” the success of its modern-day heirs, and the decline of Italy’s antifascist mores. It is available from Pluto Press.