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Confronting the Nation brings together twelve of celebrated historian George L. Mosse’s most important essays to explore competing forms of European nationalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mosse coins the term “civic religion” to describe how nationalism, especially in Germany and France, simultaneously inspired and disciplined the populace through the use of rituals and symbols. The definition of citizenship shaped by this nationalism, however, frequently excluded Jews, who were stereotyped as outsiders who sought to undermine the national community. With keen attention to liberal forms of nationalism, Mosse examines the clash of aspirational visions of an inclusive nation against cultural registers of nativist political ideologies. 

Mosse considers a broad range of topics, from Nazi book burnings to Americans’ search for unifying national symbols during the Great Depression, exploring how the development of particular modes of art, architecture, and mass movements served nationalist agendas by dictating who was included in the image of the nation. These essays retain their significance today in their examination of the cultural and social implications of contemporary nationalism. A new critical introduction by Shulamit Volkov, professor emerita of history at Tel Aviv University, situates Mosse’s analysis within its historiographical context.

This edited volume examines the myths of conspiracy within radical-right and fascist cultures and practices from the late nineteenth century onward. While its scope is broad, most contributions focus on the first half of the twentieth century in both European and global contexts, spanning events from the Great War and the Russian Revolutions to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines and geographical areas, the volume explores the cultural roots, forms, political strategies, and effects of conspiracy imagery within counter-revolutionary, reactionary, fascist, and neo-fascist currents. Particular attention is paid to antisemitism and anti-Bolshevism as strategies for legitimizing radical-right and fascist movements and governments, as well as to their role in mobilizing and polarizing politics and society, especially in wartime contexts.

This edited volume examines the myths of conspiracy within radical-right and fascist cultures and practices from the late nineteenth century onward. While its scope is broad, most contributions focus on the first half of the twentieth century in both European and global contexts, spanning events from the Great War and the Russian Revolutions to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines and geographical areas, the volume explores the cultural roots, forms, political strategies, and effects of conspiracy imagery within counter-revolutionary, reactionary, fascist, and neo-fascist currents. Particular attention is paid to antisemitism and anti-Bolshevism as strategies for legitimizing radical-right and fascist movements and governments, as well as to their role in mobilizing and polarizing politics and society, especially in wartime contexts.