In Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History: Alt/Histories, historians, sociologists, neuroscientists, lawyers, cultural critics, and literary and media scholars come together to offer an interconnected and comparative collection for understanding how contemporary far-right, neo-fascist, Alt-Right, Identitarian and New Right movements have proposed revisions and counter-narratives to accepted understandings of history, fact and narrative. The innovative essays found here bring forward urgent questions to diverse public, academic, and politically minded audiences interested in how historical understandings of race, gender, class, nationalism, religion, law, technology and the sciences have been distorted by these far-right movements. If scholars of the last twenty years, like Francis Fukuyama, believed that neoliberalism marked an 'end of history', this volume shows how the far right is effectively threatening democracy and its institutions through the dissemination of alt-facts and histories.
Author(s): Louie Dean Valencia-García
Series: Routledge Approaches to History 37
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xvi+438
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Figures
1.1 A Génération Identitaire Protest March in 2017. One Banner Reads ‘On Est Chez nous’—this is our Home—, a Popular Chant Held at the Far-Right Rallies of Rassemblement National Leader Marine Le Pen. Photo by Pulek1. Note: Image from WikiCommons. Licensed by Creative Commons
1.2 United States President Donald Trump Wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat. The Phrase Recalls an Unspecified Idealised Past—a Fascistic Palingenetic Tendency. Windover Way Photography/Shutterstock.com
1.3 Supporters of the Far-Right Golden Dawn party Celebrate After the Early Election Results at their Offices in Thessaloniki, Greece on 17 June 2012. The Group uses a ‘Meander’ Design to Recall Ancient Greece, which is also Reminiscent of the Wwastika, Another appropriated Meander Design. Alexandros Michailidis/ Shutterstock.com
1.4 The Use of the phrase ‘Hitler was a Socialist’ Had its Peak Usage on 4chan During the Months Surrounding the Release of Dinesh D’Souza’s 2017 Book, The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left. Image Produced by Louie Dean Valencia-García Using Peeters, Stijn and Sal Hagen. ‘4CAT: Capture and Analysis Toolkit’ Computer software. Vers. 1.0 (2018)
1.5 Statue of El Cid in Burgos, Spain. Botond Horvath/ Shutterstock.com
1.6 The Secretary General of the Vox Extreme Right Party, Javier Ortega Smith, in Pamplona, Spain Places a Spanish Flag on the Lectern in November 2018. MiguelOses/Shutterstock.com
3.1 Photo of the Casa de América in the Palacio de Linares in Madrid, Spain. Photo by Louie Dean Valencia-García
4.1 Marine Le Pen standing in Front of a Golden Statue of Joan of Arc During her Meeting for the Celebration in Paris, France on 1 May 2011. Frederic Legrand COMEO/Shutterstock.com
4.2 Women Members Lead a 1928 Ku Klux Klan Parade on Pennsylvania Avenue. Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com
5.1 Spanish Republican Miliciana on Watch in the Bell Tower of a Church in a Village in the Aragón Region. Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com
6.1 Crowds Gathered at Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ Rally at the Lincoln Memorial on 28 August 2010 in Washington, DC. Photo by A.J. Bauer
7.1 Alexander Dugin at a Press Conference in Bucharest on 5 April 2017. LCV/Shutterstock.com
9.1 A statue of Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia on 14 July 2017. The Site has Been the Target of Repeated White Nationalist Protests. Katherine Welles/Shutterstock.com
11.1 Young African Father with Daughter in Arms During an Anti-Fascist Parade Organised in Savona, Italy on October 2017. Brothers Art/Shutterstock.com
12.1 Jair Bolsonaro During Participation in the Unica Forum on 18 June 2018. Marcelo Chello/Shutterstock.com
14.1 Photos of Participants of the Past Continues Project, Sharing their Histories. More Information about the ‘Past Continues - Shared Narratives’ Initiative is on the Project’s Website at https://pastcontinues.org. Image courtesy authors
15.1 ‘Fashwave’ Meme Featuring a Black Sun. Image Created by Anonymous
15.2 Word Collocations with the Term ‘Kali Yuga’ in all the Comments Mentioning ‘Kali Yuga’ on 4chan /Pol/ From 2013 to 2019. The Image was Produced by Ivan Kisjes, Using Research by Daniel Jurg, Jack Wilson, Emillie de Keulenaar, Giulia Giorgi, Marc Tuters, Ivan Kisjes and Louie Dean Valencia-García; the Size is Based on Frequency as Visualised Within Gephi, Developed by Bastian et al. (2009)
15.3 Image Wall of the 50 Most Frequently Appearing Images in Comments Mentioning ‘Kalki’, i.e. the saviour that will bring an end to the Kali Yuga on 4chan /Pol/ From 2013 to 2019. Image Produced by Marc Tuters Wsing Peeters, Stijn and Sal Hagen, ‘4CAT: Capture and Analysis Toolkit’ Computer Software. Vers. 1.0 (2018)
16.1 Richard Spencer (Far Left), and Daniel Friberg (Far Right) During a White Nationalist Rally Charlottesville, Virginia on 12 August 2017 that Turned Violent Resulting in One Death and Multiple Injuries. Kim Kelley-Wagner/Shutterstock.com
16. 2 Identity Evropa, the US-Based Branch of the Generation Identity movement, Waves its Flags Next to Confederate Flags at the White Nationalist ‘Unite the Right’ Rally Organised by Richard Spencer in Charlottesville, Virginia on 12 August 2017. White Supremacist James Alex Fields was Found Guilty of Killing Counter-Protester Heather Heyer with an Automobile at the Rally. Kim Kelley- Wagner/Shutterstock.com
17.1 Crowd waves Canadian Queer Pride Flags While Watching Floats at Toronto Pride Parade on 3 July 2016. Shawn Goldberg/Shutterstock.com
18.1 Publications in Sex Differences and Feminist Biology, 1900–2018. The Top Panel Shows Absolute Counts, While the Bottom Panel Shows the Same Data as a Per Cent of all Publications in the Web of Science Core Collection. Sex Difference Publications are Counted as those with Some Variant of ‘Sex Difference’, ‘Sex[ual] Dimorphism’ or ‘[fe]Male Brain’ in their Title or abstract. Critical Feminist Publications
are Counted as those with Some Variant of ‘[sex/gender] Similarity’;
‘Feminis[t/m]’ and also ‘[biology/science]’; or Authored by any
of a Set of Feminist Critics. Medical and Animal-only Publications
are Excluded. If a publication Matches both searches, it is Counted as
Critical Feminist Only. This Approach is a Conservative Estimate of Sex
Difference Publications’ Dominance: Including Medical and Animal
Publications Doubles the Gap; and Adding Difference Authors, Removing
Feminist Ones or Including ‘Gender Difference’ Widens it as Well
Acknowledgements
1 Far-Right Revisionism and the End of History
Part I: Rewriting the Past: The History of History and Alternate Timelines
2 The Myth of the Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: The Extreme Right and the American Revision of the History and Historiography of Medieval Spain
3 The Black Legend and Its Shadow: Re-writing Colonial Narratives, the Blind Spots of Racism and the Rise of Conservative Nationalisms
4 The Far Right and Women’s History
5 The Wheel That Never Ceases: Reinventions of the Spanish Second Republic for a New National Right (2004–2017)
6 The Alternative Historiography of the Alt-Right: Conservative Historical Subjectivity from the Tea Party to Trump
7 The Extremist Construction of Identity in the Historical Narratives of Alexander Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory
Part II: The Past in the Present: History in the Public Sphere
8 The Problem of Alt-Right Medievalist White Supremacy, and Its Black Medievalist Answer
9 Getting Medieval Post-Charlottesville: Medievalism and the Alt-Right
10 Dresden Will Never Be Hiroshima: Morality, the Bomb and Far-Right Empathy for the Refugee
11 Between Past and Present: Allied Sexual Violence as a ‘Usable Past’ in Contemporary Italy
12 ‘Long Live the Polarization’: The Brazilian Radical Right and the Uses of the Past Under Jair Bolsonaro
Part III: History of the Future: Law, Science and Technology
13 Hate Groups and Greco-Roman Antiquity Online: To Rehabilitate or Reconsider?
14 Past Continues: The Instrumentalisation of History in the Countries of Former Yugoslavia
15 Esoteric Fascism Online: 4chan and the Kali Yuga
16 The Rise and Fall of the Far Right in the Digital Age
17 Transforming the Law: Canada’s Bill C-16, Gender and Post-Truth Politics
18 ‘A Large and Longstanding Body’: Historical Authority in the Science of Sex
19 Essentially a Lie: Challenging Biological Essentialist Interpretations of Transgender Neurology
20 The Country of the Future No More
Notes on Contributors
Index