Description
Book SynopsisDespite the recent rise in studies that approach fascism as a transnational phenomenon, the links between fascism and internationalist intellectual currents have only received scant attention. This book explores the political thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce, two French intellectuals, journalists and political writers who, from 1930 to the mid-1950s, moved between liberalism, fascism and Europeanism. Daniel Knegt argues that their longing for a united Europe was the driving force behind this ideological transformation-and that we can see in their thought the earliest stages of what would become neoliberalism.
Trade Review"An innovative volume, which is admirable for its original focus and out of the box thinking. ... Daniel Knegt has produced a well-conceived and attractive book. ... In it, Knegt persuasively shows how fascism functioned during the first half of the twentieth century, allowing us to explore the entanglements of different manifestations of fascism in Europe." Pablo del Hierro,
Journal of Modern History, December 2019 "This is an intellectual history of the highest order by a genuine scholar who provides a powerful case study in the turbulent ideological dynamics of fascism which should interest all those interested in fascism as a project not of reaction and anti-modernism, but of national and social transformation and renewal, of creating an alternative modernity. It is also a remarkable case study in the bad faith and moral cowardice that forces individuals to redact their own past once they survive into a liberal age." - Roger Griffin, professor of modern history and political theorist at Oxford Brookes University, England. "This is a thoughtful, well-written monograph on the lives and political activities of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce." - Constantin Lordachi, professor of history at the Central European University, Budapest
Table of ContentsPreface List of Abbreviations Introduction: Fascism in France and Beyond Intellectual Fascism? Between Immunity and Pan-Fascism New Perspectives Europeanism, Fascism and Neoliberalism Chapter 1: ‘En Faisant l’Europe’: Internationalism and the Fascist Drift ‘La Nouvelle Génération Européenne’: Generation Politics in 1920s France Reconciliation with Germany at all Costs Metaphysical Europeanism Chapter 2: Planning, Fascism and the State: 1930-1939 From Liberalism to ‘l’Économie Dirigée’ A National and Social Revolution Party Intellectuals at the Service of Fascism Chapter 3: Facing a Fascist Europe: 1939-1943 Defeat and Readjustment Tracing the Origins of Defeat ‘On the Threshold of a New World’ New Rulers, Old Acquaintances Collaboration and Attentisme Chapter 4: A European Revolution? Liberation and the Post-war Extreme Right Liberation and Persecution Exile and Exclusion ‘Beyond Nazism’: Monarchism and the Heritage of Fascism Reinventing the Extreme Right Europeanism, Federalism and the Reconfiguration of the Extreme Right Chapter 5: Europeanism, Neoliberalism and the Cold War On Private Life and Facial Hair On Power: Pessimism, Aristocracy and the Distrust of Democracy A Mountain in Switzerland: Neoliberalism and the Mont Pèlerin Society ‘This General Feeling of Open Conspiracy’ Conclusion: From the Sohlberg to Mont Pèlerin Bibliography Index
