Ideological Storms

Intellectuals, Dictators, and the Totalitarian Temptation
ISBN: 
978-963-386-303-9
cloth
$121.00 / €111.00 / £95.00
Publication date: 
2019
548 pages

This volume gathers authors who wrote important works in the fields of the history of ideology, the comparative study of dictatorship, and intellectual history. The book is a state of the art reassessment and analysis of the ideological commitments of intellectuals and their relationships with dictatorships during the twentieth century. The contributions focus on turning points or moments of rupture as well as on the continuities. Though its focus is on an East–West comparison in Europe, there are texts also dealing with Latin America, China, and the Middle East, giving the book a global outlook.
The first part of the book deals with intellectuals' involvement with communist regimes or parties; the second looks at the persistence of utopianism in the trajectory of intellectuals who had been associated earlier in their lives with either communism or fascism; the third considers the role of intellectuals in national imaginations from the left or the right; and the fourth links late twentieth century phenomena to current phenomena, such as the persistence of anti-Semitism in the West, the slow erosion of the values upon which the EU is built, the quagmire in Iraq, and China's rise in the post-Cold War era. The collection provides a comprehensive overview of intellectual genealogies and dictatorial developments.

Introduction by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Bogdan C. Iacob

Part One: Intellectuals and Communism in Europe

Michael David-Fox: Illusions of Influence and the Mystique of Power: The Fellow-Travelers and Stalin as Philosopher-King
David Brandenberger: Stalin and the Muse of History: The Dictator and His Critics on the Editing of the 1938 'Short Course'
Stanislao G. Pugliese: Resisting the Totalitarian Temptation: The Case of Ignazio Silone
Nikos Marantzidis: Greek Intellectuals and the Fascination with Communism: The Graft that Did Not Blossom (1924–1949)
Angelo Mitchievici: Shadows of Paradise: Romanian Intellectuals and the Soviet Union
Bodan C. Iacob: National Rebirth, Intellectuals, and the Rise of the Communist Regime in Romania (1944–1947)

Part Two: Revolution and Utopia

Paul Hollander: Dictators and Intellectuals: Attractions and Affinities
Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi: A "Beautiful" Dream: Mussolini's Delirium of Omnipotence and the Aesthetics of the Sublime
Vladimir Tismaneanu: The Metapolitics of Despair: Romania's Mystical Generation and the Passions of Emil Cioran
Michael Scammell: Arthur Koestler and the Temptations of Utopianism
Marius Stan: Radical Engagements: Surrealism, Art, and Politics in Interwar Romania

Part Three: Visions of the Nation in Eastern Europe

Dennis Deletant: Ion Antonescu: The Temptation of Fascism
Vladimir Petrović: Ethnopolitical Temptations Reach Southeastern Europe: Wartime Policy Papers of Vasa Čubrilović and Sabin Manuilă
Michal Kopeček: Czech Communist Intellectuals and the National Road to Socialism
Cristian Vasile: Party Intellectuals and Romanian National Stalinism

Part Four: Lessons at the Turn of a Century

Jeffrey Herf: At War with Israel: Anti-Zionism in East Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s
Adeed Dawisha: The Pathology of Arab Dictatorship: Memories of Saddam Hussein
Jan-Werner Müller: Calming the Ideological Storms? Reflections on Cold War Liberalism
Jeffrey Wasserstrom: Fear and Freedom in Contemporary China

Epilogue. Mark Lilla: Political Innocence and Its Modes

"Ideological Storms showcases prominent, established, and regionally well-known scholars based in the US and Europe. The volume contributes to the study of totalitarian regimes, intellectual history and the history of ideas in Eastern Europe. Enthusiasts of intellectual history will truly enjoy this collection, the new take on better known and hitherto underexplored case studies; and those curious to explore the 'ideological storms' of Europe’s mid-twentieth century will find much inspiration."