A. Dirk Moses
Dirk Moses is professor of modern history at the University of Sydney, author of German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past (2007), and editor of volumes on violence, memory, and world history. He edits the Journal of Genocide Research and is finishing an intellectual history of the genocide concept.
All essays by A. Dirk Moses
The Long First World War: The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth
The recent victory of nationalist parties in Hungary and Poland, with their anti-immigrant rhetoric, has emboldened the likeminded in their western neighbours; they eagerly await coming elections while entreating Australia’s hardline refugee policy. They have already set the agenda with Brexit and in the United States, where rightwing populism prevails. Liberal and leftist pundits are plundering European history for analogies to understand these developments, invoking the German template in particular. Is Trump a fascist, indeed a Nazi? Or, if not, at least some (or many) of his supporters? Reading The Vanquished suggests that excessive attention is paid to Hitler and the 1930s, the politics of which were over-determined by the Great Depression. To understand the fragility of parliamentary regimes and the authoritarian appeal, we need to return to the origin of the interwar conflicts in the years covered by this book.’