Journal Article

Editorial – Axis empires: towards a global history of fascist imperialism

Hofmann, Reto, Hedinger, Daniel

2017

Overview

In exploring the Axis as a transnational history of fascism and a global history of imperialism, the articles here propose a new reading of an alliance that has conventionally been treated within the purview of diplomatic history.1In the historiography of the Second World War, the Axis appears as the almost unwitting consequence of decisions taken in Tokyo, Rome, and Berlin since the early 1930s, which led the three countries into diplomatic isolation by the end of that decade. After the Cold War the interest in world order returned, especially in the United States in the context of the rise of China.3But there has been comparatively little discussion about competing concepts of world order during the 1930s and 1940s.4At the same time, transnational history approaches have focused on non-state actors (or mid ranking officials), writers, ideologues, physicians, and the like, and have examined how they produced knowledge or practices across multiple national contexts. Furthermore, expansionism was often not considered a generic attribute of fascist ideology and practice.5Yet, in our reading, fascist imperialism not only concerned power politics, world order, and territorial expansion, but also had an ideological dimension that was at the core of the doctrine.6By approaching the history of fascism from a trans-imperial perspective, the following articles alter our understanding of the nature of fascism in the interwar years. [...]they are a contribution to a global history of fascism, and answer recent calls for just such an approach.7 The third historiographical strand we address is the new imperial history. A...

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: 20th century / American history / Colonialism / Editorial / Fascism / Geopolitics / Historiography / Ideology / Imperialism / Studies / Transnationalism / World War II