Neofascism in Europe (1945-1989): A Long Cultural Journey

The text represents a long journey in the debate that characterized the multifaceted political phenomenon of neofascism. From the end of the Second World War until the fall of the communist regimes, groups, parties and individuals have given life to a network of action and thought that has developed, above all, around three major themes that have characterized the thought of historical fascism and that we can find at different latitudes during the course of the long period of time under consideration. Racism, contempt for equality and democracy and an issue linked to the state as an element of modernity, these are the three levels of analysis around which the neofascist movement regroups, debates and acts. The meticulous reconstruction of that debate at a transnational level is the result of a long archival work with unpublished and illuminating papers on the issue of continuity between political cultures. The text can be easily read by students of Humanities and Social Sciences courses but it is also pleasant for fans of the subject.

Matteo Albanese is Professor of History of political parties and movements at the University of Padua. He is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences in Lisbon, after defending his doctoral thesis at the European University Institute. He has been a visiting scholar at Sciences-po, Paris and at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is the author of essays on political violence and extremism in Italy and abroad.

Among his publications we mention: Tondini di ferro e bossoli di piombo; una storia sociale delle brigate rosse (Iron rods and lead cases, a social history of the red brigades) (Pacini 2020) and Transnational Fascism in the Twentieth Century: Spain, Italy, and the Global Neo-Fascist Network (Bloomsbury, 2016). He won the ERICS prize from Portuguese academy for this book. Most recently he also published: The Italian fascist community in Argentina. 1946-1978, European History Quarterly, Sage, Newbury Park, California, n 2/2020

Recently he was the author of a small volume on the death of Aldo Moro at the hands of the Brs published by Corriere della Sera.