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To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Volume 1: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships
To the Threshold of Power is the first volume of a two-part work that seeks to explain the origins and dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist dictatorships. It lays a foundation for understanding the Nazi and Fascist regimes from their respective seizures of power in 1922 and 1933 to global war, genocide, and common ruin through parallel investigations of Italian and German society, institutions, and national myths; the supreme test of the First World War; and the post-1918 struggles from which the Fascist and National Socialist movements emerged. It emphasizes two principal sources of movement: the nationalist mythology of the intellectuals and the institutional culture and agendas of the two armies, especially the Imperial German Army and its Reichswehr successor. The book s climax is the cataclysm of 1914 18 and the rise and triumph of militarily organized radical nationalist movements Mussolini s Fasci di combattimento and Hitler s National Socialist German Workers Party dedicated to the perpetuation of the war and the overthrow of the post-1918 world order."
- GenresGermany
448 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2007
42 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 7, 2009
Well... I have finished this really stupendous book. All I can say is that I wait eagerly await for vol. II. Only caveat is that since this is a work of synthesis, it is not the best introduction to the topic, but requires that the reader know something about both countries. It is also, ultimately, an attack on Kershaw and the whole "structuralists"/"parenthesis" (Croce) thesis -- an attack on the view that Fascism/Nazism was just an "accident in the works" (Fr. Stern).... a mere "Betriebunsfall in der Geschichte" (Knox, 389 n.482). Just superb!
November 29, 2012
Knox details the thought, literature, economics and politics that brought Europe to World War I and from there to the post-war dictatorships of Mussolini and Hitler. Both Italy and Germany entered the 20th century newly formed as nations. Both were cobbled together by strong political leaders to very different degrees of unity from a cluster of principalities and dominions. The power elites of both countries developed a strong myth of nationality and, for economic and political reasons, used that myth to lay claim to world power status.
My particular interest is in Italian history, so I’ll focus there. In the 1880s, advocates of expansionism began reaching back to Roman times, or at least as far as Dante, for justification of Italy’s broader territorial claims. Dante had defined Italy as extending to the east as far as Fiume (now Rijeka). Some pretense was given to the notion that Austria-Hungary, which still controlled what is now northeastern Italy, north and east of Venice, should give Italian-speaking cities like Fiume, Trieste and Udine the right of self-determination. That notion completely ignored the fact that the use of Italian was largely a matter of convenience as the language of business, and that substantial minorities in the cities and the majorities in their respective regions didn’t speak Italian, didn’t view themselves as Italians and had no interest in becoming part of Italy.
There were intellectuals in Trieste (the biggest target city) and in Italy making additional arguments for unification. Some proclaimed the need to give Trieste a cultural identity. Others promulgated a vision of a united nations of Europe that would depend on national boundaries based on language and cultural identity. But these arguments had no relevance in the piazza. Even the leading analyst of the Italian nationalists wrote in 1926 that in Trieste in 1914 only perhaps 50 people out of a population of 250,000 were actively promoting unification with Italy, and that perhaps 5,000 would have voted for it.
It’s my belief that, in the end, Italy’s political leadership leveraged widespread illiteracy and ignorance to create myths to support the nation’s expansionist goals and economic interests. and empower Italy’s diplomats to waltz their way through the European capitals. Italy claimed neutrality as World War I approached but, as they had before several previous European conflicts, Italian leaders waltzed their way through the European capitals on their way to the war-time alliance – with Great Britain, France and Russia -- that would provide the best position possible for further territorial acquisition.
Knox provides a relatively readable narrative for the lay person and extensive footnotes that will satisfy the more academic reader. This book, along with Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,” helped take me behind the official histories to reveal the colossal scale of manipulation used by the Italian power elite to control the country in the first half of the 20th century.
My particular interest is in Italian history, so I’ll focus there. In the 1880s, advocates of expansionism began reaching back to Roman times, or at least as far as Dante, for justification of Italy’s broader territorial claims. Dante had defined Italy as extending to the east as far as Fiume (now Rijeka). Some pretense was given to the notion that Austria-Hungary, which still controlled what is now northeastern Italy, north and east of Venice, should give Italian-speaking cities like Fiume, Trieste and Udine the right of self-determination. That notion completely ignored the fact that the use of Italian was largely a matter of convenience as the language of business, and that substantial minorities in the cities and the majorities in their respective regions didn’t speak Italian, didn’t view themselves as Italians and had no interest in becoming part of Italy.
There were intellectuals in Trieste (the biggest target city) and in Italy making additional arguments for unification. Some proclaimed the need to give Trieste a cultural identity. Others promulgated a vision of a united nations of Europe that would depend on national boundaries based on language and cultural identity. But these arguments had no relevance in the piazza. Even the leading analyst of the Italian nationalists wrote in 1926 that in Trieste in 1914 only perhaps 50 people out of a population of 250,000 were actively promoting unification with Italy, and that perhaps 5,000 would have voted for it.
It’s my belief that, in the end, Italy’s political leadership leveraged widespread illiteracy and ignorance to create myths to support the nation’s expansionist goals and economic interests. and empower Italy’s diplomats to waltz their way through the European capitals. Italy claimed neutrality as World War I approached but, as they had before several previous European conflicts, Italian leaders waltzed their way through the European capitals on their way to the war-time alliance – with Great Britain, France and Russia -- that would provide the best position possible for further territorial acquisition.
Knox provides a relatively readable narrative for the lay person and extensive footnotes that will satisfy the more academic reader. This book, along with Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,” helped take me behind the official histories to reveal the colossal scale of manipulation used by the Italian power elite to control the country in the first half of the 20th century.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews