20th century history
A01=Aristotle Kallis
Author_Aristotle Kallis
Category=JBFK
Category=JPFQ
Category=NHD
destruction
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
far-right
Hitler
icons
Mussolini
nazism
political ideologies
revolution
violence
Product details
- ISBN 9781350169074
- Weight: 600g
- Dimensions: 160 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 19 Mar 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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In Iconic Fascism, Aristotle Kallis uncovers the paradox at the heart of fascist politics: the simultaneous obsession with destroying and creating powerful symbols. This book demonstrates how fascists were simultaneously some of history's most passionate icon-lovers and most ruthless icon-breakers, wielding symbolic excess as both weapon and worship in their revolutionary project. Through a sweeping comparative analysis, Kallis reveals how fascist movements and later regimes were driven by a relentless battle of absolutes, seeking not only to eradicate the icons and reclaim the spaces of their enemies, but to saturate public life with their own emblems, rituals, and myths; and to make the political visceral. Kallis demonstrates that fascist violence was never merely blind or indiscriminate. Instead, it was a meticulously choreographed struggle for symbolic dominance, in which the destruction of enemy 'false' icons was inseparable from the performative creation of new, sacred icons of fascist power. He traces how this constant pursuit of "destructive creation" evolved from street-level partisan warfare to state-sponsored spectacles of monumental architecture and mass liturgies. Kallis argues that fascism's 'iconic compulsion' — its need to condense moral absolutes into visible, emotionally potent symbols — remained constant whether fascists operated as fringe insurgents or totalitarian regimes, fuelling its cycles of rupture and rebirth. Spanning street-level violence, mass spectacle, and monumental urban planning, Iconic Fascism challenges us to rethink the role of symbols in the making—and unmaking—of political communities.
Aristotle Kallis is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Keele University, UK. He is the author of Genocide and Fascism (2009), The Third Rome (2014), and Nazi Propaganda in the Second World War (2005), as well as articles and chapters on aspects of fascist violence and cultural production.
