This book offers a complete narrative of the development of Nordicism, from its roots in the National Romantic movement of the late eighteenth century, through to its most notorious manifestation in Nazi Germany, and finally to the fragmented forms that still remain in contemporary society. It is distinctive in treating Nordicism as a phenomenon with its own narrative, rather than as discreet episodes in works studying aspects of Eugenics, Nationalism, Nazism and the reception history of Old Norse culture. It is also distinctive in applying to this narrative a framework of analysis derived from the parallel theories of Roger Griffin and Zygmunt Bauman, to examine Nordicism as a process of myth creation protecting both the individual and society from the challenges and terror of an ever-changing and accelerating state of modernity.
Author(s): Gregers Einer Forssling
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 267
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: Nordicism, Myth and Modernity
Locating This Investigation into Nordicism Within Existing Research
Recasting Nordicism
Roger Griffin’s Theory of Modernism
Overview
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Chapter 2: New Foundations: Nationalist and Romantic Visions of the Nordic in Northern Europe and America
Rediscovering National Roots in Northern Europe and North America
Growing Apart Together: Scandinavian Romanticism and Nationalism
Romanticism and the Viking in Georgian and Victorian Britain
Born in the USA: The Vínland Myth
Establishing a Home-Grown Mythology: German Romanticism, Myth and National Unity
Conclusion: National Romanticism as a Foundation for Nordicism
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Chapter 3: Regeneration: Racial Science, Eugenics and the Emergence of Nordicism
The Genesis Question: The Word of God and Human Diversity
Taxonomy: Measuring and Classifying a Race
The Evolution of the Races: The Impact of Darwinism
From Genesis to Racial Science
The Aryan and the Nordic
Miscegenation: The Racial Crisis of Aryanism
Locating the Homeland of the Aryan in the North
From Aryanism to Nordicism
Regeneration: From Theory to Practice
Eugenics as a Form of Programmatic Modernism
Conclusion: Nordicism as a Solution to Racial and Cultural Degeneration
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Chapter 4: Towards Ragnarǫk
Nordicism as a Cultural, Political and Scientific Reality in Germany and the USA
Modernity and Preserving the Nordic American
Madison Grant: Nordicism in the USA
The Immigration Act of 1924: Nordicism as Political and Legislative Reality in the USA
Nordicism as a Modernist Belief System in America
American Nordicist Reality as a Blueprint for Nazi Racial Policies
Modernity and Regenerating the Nordic Race in Inter-War Germany
Nordicism as a Twentieth-Century Revitalisation Movement
The Inter-War Nordicist Scientific Communitas in Scandinavia, Germany and the USA
The Nordicist Communitas Within Nazism
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Chapter 5: Nordicism Unleashed
The Rise of Nazism in the USA During the 1930s
A Legal Framework for Nordicism in Germany
Himmler’s SS: The Implementation of Nordicism
Organising and Applying Nordicism: The RuSHA
The Ahnenerbe: Researching the Nordic
Lebensborn: Propagating the Nordic Gene Pool
Educating the Future Nordic Order
April 1940: Occupying the North
Lebensraum for the Nordic: The East
Conclusion: Ragnarǫk
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Chapter 6: The Flotsam of Nordicism in Our Liquid Modernity
Modern Nostalgia for the Old Norse in Popular Entertainment
The Re-emergence of Right-Wing Thought in Europe
Fragments of Nordicism: Nostalgia for a Mythical Racial Purity
Nordicism.com: Online Nordicism
Norse Paganism and Nordic Purity
Modern Vínland
The Nordic Resistance Movement
The Nordic Terror of Anders Breivik: Oslo and Utøya 22/7
Conclusion: Liquid Nordicism
Notes
Bibliography
Printed Works
Websites and Digital Publications (With Date Accessed)
Index
