Peter Staudenmaier

Julius Evola and the Radical Right examines the ideas and influence of Italian thinker Julius Evola (1898–1974), an increasingly popular author within the far right and the esoteric milieu alike. An iconic figure for successive generations of the radical right, Evola is both revered and reviled, but his past remains contested. Those seeking information about him are confronted with a fractured and contentious legacy. Drawing on the archival record and texts that Evola left behind, this book reconstructs his intellectual trajectory and examines his activities in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany, and in the neo-fascist movement after 1945. It demonstrates that Evola and his circle were not as marginal as sometimes portrayed and cooperated more closely with Fascist and Nazi officials than previously recognized. The book dispels many of the myths surrounding Evola and his “spiritual racism” while tracing Evola’s enduring influence after his death, showing how his ideas continue to inspire contemporary political movements. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Fascism, Nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust.

Julius Evola and the Radical Right examines the ideas and influence of Italian thinker Julius Evola (1898–1974), an increasingly popular author within the far right and the esoteric milieu alike. An iconic figure for successive generations of the radical right, Evola is both revered and reviled, but his past remains contested. Those seeking information about him are confronted with a fractured and contentious legacy. Drawing on the archival record and texts that Evola left behind, this book reconstructs his intellectual trajectory and examines his activities in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany, and in the neo-fascist movement after 1945. It demonstrates that Evola and his circle were not as marginal as sometimes portrayed and cooperated more closely with Fascist and Nazi officials than previously recognized. The book dispels many of the myths surrounding Evola and his “spiritual racism” while tracing Evola’s enduring influence after his death, showing how his ideas continue to inspire contemporary political movements. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Fascism, Nazism, antisemitism and the Holocaust.

For some Germans, Nazism represented an ecological outlook and a return to a simpler, healthier, more natural way of life founded on environmental harmony. That image fundamentally conflicts with the astonishing destructiveness of the Nazi military machine and its legacy of concentration camps, dictatorship, and mass murder. This study argues that these two facets of Nazism, the ecological and the imperial, were integrally intertwined. Peter Staudenmaier uses new archival evidence to examine this contested history, ranging from early organic farming movements to landscape protection advocates. In doing so, Staudenmaier reveals a remarkable range of practical endeavors in Nazi Germany that were shaped by ecological ideals coupled with potent racial myths. The Politics of Nature in Nazi Germany challenges previous scholarly frameworks, bringing together environmental history and the history of Nazism in new and revealing ways.

In an age of climate crisis and political confusion, ecology seems to offer clear answers to urgent questions about the current global predicament. Yet ecology has always been politically ambivalent. Environmental ideals appeal to radicals and reactionaries alike; ecological concerns can align with both the left and the right, including the extreme right. In Ecology Contested, Peter Staudenmaier examines the complex and conflicting politics of environmentalism with a critical eye, offering challenging perspectives on the historical, philosophical, and political dimensions of ecological engagement in a troubled world.

The disconcerting reappearance of fascism in many parts of the Western world since the late twentieth century has prompted a re-evaluation of previous political assumptions. One of the more controversial facets of this process centers on the role of ecological ideas and practices within fascist circles, historically as well as today. The effort by fascist ideologists and groups to appropriate ecology for reactionary purposes has long historical roots in Germany, an aspect of the past that remains urgently relevant for the present. From the contested history of the Third Reich to the ongoing attempts by far-right currents to modernize their appeal through the selective use of ecological themes, this book traces the surprising background and contemporary significance of reactionary varieties of ecology in Germany and elsewhere. The original chapters have been supplemented by an extensive epilogue exploring the historical and political implications of the ecofascist legacy.