Fascismi: ieri, oggi, domani. Questioni di storiografia

The author addresses two general questions central to the discussion around fascism: is it a political phenomenon circumscribed in time and space or a theoretical category of broader application? Which disciplines and research that interrogate the contemporary can help to deepen the difference between the culture of historical fascisms and that of the radical right-wingers of our times? In attempting to answer these questions, the author focuses on Giorgia Meloni’s autobiography, recording similarities and differences with the biography of Mussolini written by Margherita Sarfatti. He then discusses the results of three ‘work sites’ on historical fascisms and neo-fascisms opened during the 1990s by Roberto Vivarelli, Pierre Milza and Robert O. Paxton. Referring in particular to Paxton’s work, he finally proposes four further lines of investigation, concerning: 1) the construction of the imaginary of Europe; 2) the nexus between fascism, conservatism, and nationalism; 3) the connection between the ideas of community, territory and nostalgia; 4) the process of modernization of France between the 1920s and the 1970s, investigated by the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Présent (IHTP).