HIST 330 | Fascism in Modern Europe

The course examines the fascist regimes of Europe in the twentieth century, with a focus on Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. The first part of the course explores the origins of fascist movements in nationalism, World War One, colonial racism, anti-Semitism, and notions of masculinity. The course examines several questions that have occupied historians of these regimes: what allowed what were initially fringe political movements to take power? How did Nazi Germany construct a state based on pseudo-scientific racist ideology? What shaped the actions of both perpetrators and victims of state violence? To address these and other questions, the course involves analysis of a wide range of scholarly and primary sources such as memoirs, speeches and images.