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The increasing radicalization of political life in most countries in Europe lends special relevance to studies of the antifascist legacies on the continent. This insightful collection of essays is an in-depth review of antifascism in Slovenia, setting it in the context of related movements elsewhere in Europe. The period treated by the 19 essays comprises the interwar period, World War Two, and the post-war decades. The comparative and transnational perspectives advanced by the volume change our understanding of antifascism.

The essays deal with the right-wing but also left-wing instrumentalization of antifascism, with a particular focus on the communist and post-communist periods. The authors point out that antifascism comes in various strains, whether inspired by liberalism, social democracy, communism, monarchism, anarchism, or even Christian conservatism. The contributors bring to light several overlooked antifascist actors, campaigns, and organisations, mostly in Slovenia and the Adriatic area.

While public intellectuals are typically thought of as inherently nonconformist and critical of established power, in practice many adapt themselves to the views of the majority—particularly in the context of repressive governments and dictatorships. When the political winds change, such figures often refashion themselves to fit the new paradigm. Ghosts of Fascism follows the trajectories of four major Italian intellectuals who, despite their passivity and at times collaboration with Fascist institutions, became some of postwar Italy’s iconic anti-Fascists: Federico Chabod, a prominent historian who would join the Resistance; the jurist Piero Calamandrei, who later participated in drafting the Italian democratic constitution; the influential literary critic Luigi Russo, who presided over the prestigious Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa; and Alberto Moravia, the internationally renowned novelist. Simon Levis Sullam weaves together their histories to show how postwar Italian intellectuals quietly revised their previous political positions, redefining themselves—and their recent pasts, together with that of the entire nation—as consistently anti-Fascist.

One of the enduring myths about World War Two is that only the Allies liberated occupied Europe. Many countries had anti-fascist Resistance movements, and Italy's was one of the biggest and most politically radical yet it remains relatively unknown outside of its own homeland.

Within Italy many plaques and streets commemorate the actions of the partisans - a movement from below that grew as Mussolini's dictatorship unravelled. Led by radical left forces, the Resistance trod a thin line between fighting their enemies at home and maintaining an uneasy working relationship with the Allies.

Essential for courses on World War Two and European history, Tom Behan uses unpublished archival material and interviews with surviving partisans to tell an inspiring story of liberation.