Spectres of Fascism


Book Description

Historians and theorists debate the return of fascism, focusing on case studies from around the world.




The Death of Consensus


Book Description

Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? To find out, journalist Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born. How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again? Tinline brings to life those times, past and present, when the great compromise holding democracy together has come apart; when the political class has been forced to make a choice of nightmares. This lively, original account of panic and chaos reveals how apparent catastrophes can clear the path to a new era. The Death of Consensus will make you see British democracy differently.




Male Fantasies


Book Description




Spectres in the Smoke


Book Description

In austere, post-World War II England, Jethro the cat burglar must again take on the mantle of spy for MI5 as he attempts to prevent a plot to undermine Britain's new Labour Government.




The Fascist Revolution


Book Description

Originally published by Howard Fertig, Inc., under the title The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism, copyright Ã1999 by George L. Mosse.




Topographies of Fascism


Book Description

Topographies of Fascism offers the first comprehensive exploration of how Spanish fascist writing – essays, speeches, articles, propaganda materials, poems, novels, and memoirs – represented and created space from the early 1920s until the late 1950s. Nil Santiáñez contends that fascism expressed its views on the state, the nation, and the society in spatial terms (for example, the state as a “building,” the nation as an “organic unity,” and society as the “people's community”), just as its adherents celebrated fascism in its architecture, public spectacles, and military rituals. While Topographies of Fascism centres on Spain, a nation that produced a large number of fascist texts focused on space, it also draws on works written by key German, Italian, and French fascist politicians and intellectuals. Ultimately, it provides an innovative model for analyzing the comparable yet often overlooked strategies of symbolic representation and production of space in fascist political and cultural discourse.




Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism


Book Description

Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism provides rich new insights into the history of political thought and clinical knowledge. In these chapters, internationally renowned historians and cultural theorists discuss landmark debates about the uses and abuses of ‘the talking cure’ and map the diverse psychologies and therapeutic practices that have featured in and against tyrannical, modern regimes. These essays show both how the Freudian movement responded to and was transformed by the rise of fascism and communism, the Second World War, and the Cold War, and how powerful new ideas about aggression, destructiveness, control, obedience and psychological freedom were taken up in the investigation of politics. They identify important intersections between clinical debate, political analysis, and theories of minds and groups, and trace influential ideas about totalitarianism that took root in modern culture after 1918, and still resonate in the twenty-first century. At the same time, they suggest how the emergent discourses of ‘totalitarian’ society were permeated by visions of the unconscious. Topics include: the psychoanalytic theorizations of anti-Semitism; the psychological origins and impact of Nazism; the post-war struggle to rebuild liberal democracy; state-funded experiments in mind control in Cold War America; coercive ‘re-education’ programmes in Eastern Europe, and the role of psychoanalysis in the politics of decolonization. A concluding trio of chapters argues, in various ways, for the continuing relevance of psychoanalysis, and of these mid-century debates over the psychology of power, submission and freedom in modern mass society. Psychoanalysis in the Age of Totalitarianism will prove compelling for both specialists and readers with a general interest in modern psychology, politics, culture and society, and in psychoanalysis. The material is relevant for academics and post-graduate students in the human, social and political sciences, the clinical professions, the historical profession and the humanities more widely.




The Spectre of War


Book Description

A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.




Specters of Marx


Book Description

Prodigiously influential, Jacques Derrida gave rise to a comprehensive rethinking of the basic concepts and categories of Western philosophy in the latter part of the twentieth century, with writings central to our understanding of language, meaning, identity, ethics and values. In 1993, a conference was organized around the question, 'Whither Marxism?’, and Derrida was invited to open the proceedings. His plenary address, 'Specters of Marx', delivered in two parts, forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated when it was first published, a rapidly changing world and world politics have scarcely dented the relevance of this book.




Politics of Happiness


Book Description

This unique and engaging study argues that the Western concern with achieving happiness should be understood in terms of its relationship to the political ideologies that have emerged since the Enlightenment. To do so, each chapter examines the place that happiness occupies in the construction of ideologies that have formed the political terrain of the West, including liberalism, postmodernism, socialism, fascism, and religion. Throughout, Hegel's phenomenology, Nietzsche's genealogy, and Derrida's account of deconstruction as reactions to modernization are used to show that the politics of happiness are always a clash of fundamental ideas of belonging, overcoming, and ethical responsibility. Stressing that the concept of happiness lies at the foundation of political movements, the book also looks at its place in the current global order, analyzing the emergence of such ideas as affective democracy that challenge the conventional notions of privatized, acquisitive happiness. Written in a clear manner, the work will appeal to political theory students and researchers looking for a critical and historical account of contemporary debates about the nature of happiness and ideology.