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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2015
In reply to Patrick Bernhard's critical review of my recent book I will make some brief general observations about the study of totalitarian and would-be totalitarian regimes.
Some preliminary remarks are necessary. Bernhard locates his review within the context of the debate over Italians' consensus for Fascism – a debate continuing in Italy, with highs and lows, since the mid-1970s. His own approach is clearly very much influenced by the methodologies of cultural history; he looks for emotions, sentiments, practices and experiences in order to form a picture of how Italians lived under the regime. He approves of the history that finds these. There is much to commend this approach, and I would certainly not argue against its value – cultural studies do, indeed, have a great deal to offer. But the methodology of cultural studies is not, and cannot be, the only approach, nor its absence the only criterion for criticism.
1 Corner, Paul, The Fascist Party and Popular Opinion in Mussolini's Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Mann, Michael, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 12–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Stephenson, Jill, Hitler's Home Front, Wurttemberg under the Nazis (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006)Google Scholar.
4 For a selection of historians of this generation see Albanese, Giulia and Pergher, Roberta eds., In the Society of Fascists (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.