Fascination with the Persecutor: George L. Mosse and the Catastrophe of Modern Man PDF
Preview Fascination with the Persecutor: George L. Mosse and the Catastrophe of Modern Man
Fascination with the Persecutor George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas Series Editors Steven e. ASchheim, Skye Doney, mAry LouiSe robertS, AnD DAviD J. Sorkin Advisory Board Steven e. ASchheim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem ofer AShkenAzi, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Annette becker, Université Paris–Nanterre Skye Doney, University of Wisconsin–Madison DAgmAr herzog, City University of New York ethAn kAtz, University of California, Berkeley renAto moro, Università degli Studi Roma Tre AnSon rAbinbAch, Princeton University mAry LouiSe robertS, University of Wisconsin–Madison JoAn WALLAch Scott, Institute for Advanced Study moShe SLuhovSky, Hebrew University of Jerusalem DAviD J. Sorkin, Yale University Anthony J. Steinhoff, Université du Québec à Montréal John tortorice, University of Wisconsin–Madison tiLL vAn rAhDen, Université de Montréal Fascination with the Persecutor R George L. Mosse and the Catastrophe of Modern Man Emilio Gentile Translated by John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi The UniversiTy of Wisconsin Press Publication of this book has been made possible, in part, through support from the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The University of Wisconsin Press 728 State Street, Suite 443 Madison, Wisconsin 53706 uwpress.wisc.edu Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road London EC1R 5DB, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Originally published in Italian as Il fascino del persecutore: George L. Mosse e la catastrofe dell’uomo moderno, copyright © 2007 by Carocci editore, Rome, new edition 2018 Translation copyright © 2021 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—or conveyed via the Internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America This book may be available in a digital edition. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gentile, Emilio, 1946– author. | Tedeschi, John A., 1931– translator. | Tedeschi, Anne, translator. Title: Fascination with the persecutor : George L. Mosse and the catastrophe of modern man / Emilio Gentile ; translated by John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi. Other titles: George L. Mosse series in the history of European culture, sexuality, and ideas. Description: Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2021] | Series: George L. Mosse series in the history of European culture, sexuality, and ideas | Originally published in Italian as “Il fascino del persecutore: George L. Mosse e la catastrofe dell’uomo moderno,” copyright ©2007 by Carocci editore, Rome, new edition 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lCCn 2021016505 | iSBn 9780299334307 (hardcover) Subjects: lCSH: Mosse, George L. (George Lachmann), 1918–1999. | Fascism—Europe—Historiography. | Historians—United States. | Europe—Politics and government—1918–1945. Classification: lCC D726.5 .G4613 2021 | DDC 940.5072/02—dc23 lC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021016505 publication supported by Figure Foundation c o n t e n t s foreword by stanley g. payne ix preface xv Introduction: Between Autobiography and Historiography 3 1 The Contemporary Past 9 2 A New Cultural History 20 3 The Road to Totalitarianism 35 4 The Fascist Revolution 51 5 The Fascism of Fascisms 65 6 From Ideology to Liturgy 76 7 The New Politics 85 8 A Provisional Dwelling 106 9 The Horrors of a Fully Furnished House 117 10 Beyond Catastrophe 139 Conclusion: The Religion of an Eternal Traveler 174 : a lasting intellectual friendship An Interview with Emilio Gentile 191 notes 215 index 235 vii f o r e w o r d Stanley G. Payne The German Jewish intellectual diaspora of the 1930s had a lasting impact abroad. Many of the émigrés were mature scholars, writers, and artists, fully formed by the world of German culture. The younger generation, however, completed its education in emigration, and especially in the English-speaking world. These younger figures became more purely cosmopolitan and some of them almost ceased to be German altogether. A number became historians of distinction and of these George L. Mosse would be one of the best known and most influential, if not indeed the most prominent of all. By the time that he had completed his PhD in 1946 at not quite twenty-eight years of age, he was the product of two different phases of education, more than fourteen years in Germany and eleven in Great Brit- ain and the United States. An elite if unconventional German schooling was overlaid by more than a decade of Anglo-Saxon empiricism, producing a singular personality with a special capacity for original, unconventional, and critical thought. Four years of secondary schooling followed by two years of classes at Cambridge had pointed him in a distinctively British direc- tion, only partially modified by the next five years in the United States at Haverford and Harvard. Moving to the State University of Iowa in 1944 to teach in the military instruction program, followed by a regular History Department appointment in the succeeding year, brought George face-to-face with “middle America.” This took him out of the rarified elite background in which, in one way or another, he had lived his entire life and “Americanized” him. In Iowa he ix
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