Abstract
Reviewed by: Christian Goeschel, University of Manchester, UK
Published on the occasion of the retirement of Richard Bosworth, this collection edited by Daniela Baratieri, Mark Edele and Giuseppe Finaldi brings together a fine cast of leading historians of modern Italy, Germany, Russia and Spain to rethink aspects of twentieth-century European totalitarian dictatorships. The editors usefully map out the historiography of totalitarianism, which, after its emergence as a theoretical concept, soon came under fire from social historians, typically located on the left-liberal political spectrum, who delineated a stark contrast between a dictatorship’s ‘totalitarian aspirations’ to transform politics, culture and society and the social and political reality of these regimes. As a whole, however, the precise aims of the volume do not become entirely clear in the introduction which offers a solid, but at times descriptive review of the state of the field. One would have wished for a stronger overarching argument, but perhaps its lack is the result of the editors’ laudable aim to underline the disparate, fragmented and often highly contradictory nature of totalitarian dictatorships.
While it is true that totalitarianism, after its dismissal as a right-wing Cold War ploy to equate Nazism with Communism, saw a revival in the 1980s and 1990s, many historians of twentieth-century Europe still find the term rather blunt and unhelpful. Contrary to the editors’ claim that ‘historians of Nazism use the term [totalitarianism] again as a matter of course’ (3), only a few historians of the Third Reich use this concept, such as Michael Burleigh, whose controversial The Third Reich: A New History (2000) is referenced by the editors as the only source to back up their claim. What is more, the editors make no real effort to offer a comprehensive discussion of Emilio Gentile’s work on totalitarianism, which is far too sophisticated, complex and diverse to be glossed over with impunity. Instead, the editors echo Bosworth’s polemical attacks on the celebrated Italian scholar and his defiant mentor Renzo De Felice, whom they quote in a curiously mistaken reference from one of Bosworth’s books, rather than from the original source. Altogether, then, the introduction remains inconclusive about how exactly the concept of totalitarianism should be used by historians in the future.
However, the same cannot be said about most of the contributions, which include strong essays by Robert Gerwarth on the enigmatic SS official Reinhard Heydrich, Christopher Clark on the Wehrmacht General Blaskowitz, and Paul Preston who traces Franco’s self-stylization as a dictator. Well-written and thoughtful essays by Sheila Fitzpatrick on Stalin’s attitude towards culture and by Christopher Duggan on the reactions of ordinary Italians towards the Abyssinian campaign offer case studies on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century European dictatorships. The volume ends with Omer Bartov’s and John Foot’s persuasive chapters on the long aftermath of the Nazi and Fascist dictatorships.
The editors deserve praise for having assembled a strong collection of essays which are likely to prompt further debate on the nature of twentieth-century European dictatorships. It is unlikely that totalitarianism will re-emerge as a central concept to explain the European dictatorships of the twentieth century. It is to be hoped, however, that the book will encourage further debate on the comparative and transnational histories of European dictatorships which are still too often studied in their distinctive national contexts.