Rethinking Antifascism

Bringing together leading scholars from a range of nations, Rethinking Antifascism provides a fascinating exploration of one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines within recent historiography. Through case studies that exemplify the field’s breadth and sophistication, it examines antifascism in two distinct realms: after surveying the movement’s remarkable diversity across nations and political cultures up to 1945, the volume assesses its postwar political and ideological salience, from its incorporation into Soviet state doctrine to its radical questioning by historians and politicians. Avoiding both heroic narratives and reflexive revisionism, these contributions offer nuanced perspectives on a movement that helped to shape the postwar world.

Bringing together leading scholars from a range of nations, Rethinking Antifascism provides a fascinating exploration of one of the most vibrant sub-disciplines within recent historiography. Through case studies that exemplify the field’s breadth and sophistication, it examines antifascism in two distinct realms: after surveying the movement’s remarkable diversity across nations and political cultures up to 1945, the volume assesses its postwar political and ideological salience, from its incorporation into Soviet state doctrine to its radical questioning by historians and politicians. Avoiding both heroic narratives and reflexive revisionism, these contributions offer nuanced perspectives on a movement that helped to shape the postwar world.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Beyond Revisionism: Rethinking Antifascism in the Twenty-First Century
Hugo García, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet, Cristina Clímaco

PART I: HISTORICAL ANTIFASCISM, 1922-1945: NEW PERSPECTIVES , NEW RESEARCH TOPICS

Chapter 1. Freedom for Thälmann! The Comintern and the Orchestration of the Campaign to Free Ernst Thälmann, 1933-39
Anson Rabinbach

Chapter 2. Was the French Popular Front Antifascist?
Michael Seidman

Chapter 3. ‘Beyond Cable Street’: New Approaches to the Historiography of Antifascism in Britain in the 1930s
Tom Buchanan

Chapter 4. Searching for Antifascism: Historiography, the Crisis of the Liberal State and the Birth of Fascism and Antifascism in Italy, Spain and Portugal
Giulia Albanese

Chapter 5. Was there an Antifascist Culture in Spain during the 1930s?
Hugo García

Chapter 6. Portugal within the European Antifascist Movement, 1922-39
Cristina Clímaco

Chapter 7. The Argentine Antifascist Movement and the Building of a Tempting Domestic Appeal, 1922-46
Andrés Bisso

Chapter 8. Women and Antifascism: Historiographical and Methodological Approaches
Isabelle Richet

Chapter 9. The Strained Courtship between Antifascism and Feminism: from the Women’s World Committee (1934) to the Women’s International Democratic Federation (1945)
Mercedes Yusta

PART II: POLITICAL USES, MEMORY WARS AND REVISIONISM FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT

Chapter 10. From Antifascistas to PAF: Lexical and Political Interpretations of American International Brigaders in Spain and World War II
Robert S. Coale

Chapter 11. An Antifascist Political Identity? On the Cult of Antifascism in the Soviet Union and post-Socialist Russia
José María Faraldo

Chapter 12. The Burden of the Rear-view Mirror: Myth and Historiography of Republican Antifascism in France
Gilles Vergnon

Chapter 13. Did Revisionism Win? Italy between Loss of Historical Consciousness and Nostalgia for the Past
Stéphanie Prezioso

Chapter 14. Antifascism and the Resistance: Public Debates and Politics of Memory in Italy from the 1990s to Today
Filippo Focardi

Chapter 15. In Search of the Lost Narrative: Antifascism and Democracy in Present Day Spain
Javier Muñoz Soro

Chapter 16. Dictatorship and Revolution: Disputes over Collective Memory in Post-Authoritarian Portugal.
Manuel Loff and Luciana Soutelo

Chapter 17. Antifascism between Collective Memory and Historical Revisions
Enzo Traverso

Bibliography
Index