Enzo Traverso is a leading contemporary historian and theorist whose work delves deeply into the nature of totalitarianism, violence, and the complex intergroup dynamics within historical conflicts. He draws from a broad spectrum of disciplines, including political science and sociology, to analyze the roots and manifestations of extremist ideologies and their societal impact. His writing is characterized by a penetrating analytical approach, seeking to understand the darker aspects of modern history to illuminate their enduring influence. Traverso's contributions are valued for their intellectual rigor and help readers grapple with pivotal challenges of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The essay offers a critical examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, providing historical insights that challenge prevailing Western perceptions. Through a thorough analysis, the historian aims to deepen understanding of the complexities surrounding the war, highlighting the urgent need for a reevaluation of attitudes towards the region.
Singular Pasts offers a critical account of the emergence of authorial subjectivity in historical writing, scrutinizing both its achievements and its shortcomings. Enzo Traverso considers a group of contemporary historians who reveal their emotional ties to their subjects and give their writing a literary flavor.
A cultural and intellectual balance-sheet of the twentieth century's age of revolutions
In this collection of essays, Enzo Traverso examines the relationships between anti-Semitism, modernity and the Holocaust. The different parts of the book analyse multiple dimensions of the destruction of the European Jews, debates over historical memory and left-wing debates on the nature of anti-Semitism. Inspired by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School and the heterodox Marxism of a thinker like Walter Benjamin, Traverso argues that after Auschwitz, critical thought needs to reconsider the notion of progress as such. Enzo Traverso is the Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. His publications include: The New Faces of Fascism, Populism and the Far Right, Verso, 2019; Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory, Columbia University Press, 2017, The End of Jewish Modernity, Pluto Press, 2016; Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914-1945, Verso, 2016; The Origins of Nazi Violence, New Press, 2003.
In this updated and completely revised second edition, Enzo Traverso carefully reconstructs the intellectual debate surrounding the Jewish Question' over a century of Marxist thought.
What is fascism in the twenty first century? What does Fascism mean at the beginning of the twenty-first century? When we pronounce this word, our memory goes back to the years between the two world wars and envisions a dark landscape of violence, dictatorships, and genocide. These images spontaneously surface in the face of the rise of radical right, racism, xenophobia, islamophobia and terrorism, the last of which is often depicted as a form of "Islamic fascism." Beyond some superficial analogies, however, all these contemporary tendencies reveal many differences from historical fascism, probably greater than their affinities. Paradoxically, the fear of terrorism nourishes the populist and racist rights, with Marine Le Pen in France or Donald Trump in the US claiming to be the most effective ramparts against "Jihadist fascism". But since fascism was a product of imperialism, can we define as fascist a terrorist movement whose main target is Western domination? Disentangling these contradictory threads, Enzo Traverso's historical gaze helps to decipher the enigmas of the present. He suggests the concept of post-fascism--a hybrid phenomenon, neither the reproduction of old fascism nor something completely different--to define a set of heterogeneous and transitional movements, suspended between an accomplished past still haunting our memories and an unknown future.
Enzo Traverso's investigation is based on a brilliant-although controversial- idea. It is an important book that deserves to prompt vast and interesting debates. -Saul Friedländer, UCLA, author of Nazi Germany and the Jews and The Years of Extermination Written with empathy and perspicacity, Fire and Blood takes the measure of the explosion of violence-revolutionary vs. counter- revolutionary, fascist vs. anti-fascist, military vs. civilian-that constituted the European 'civil war' of the first half of the twentieth century. Enzo Traverso's admirable erudition and judiciousness make this work an indispensable synthesis. -Anson Rabinbach, Princeton University Despite thousands of books on the two world wars, we are still far from understanding the violence that tore Europe apart between 1914 and 1945. By conceiving of the conflict as a civil war, Enzo Traverso provides us with a new way to think about the disaster that continues to shape the twenty-first century. -Joanna Bourke, Birkbeck College Enzo Traverso's provocative book poses a profoundly important question to modern history. How can we understand the 'age of extremes' (1914 to 1945) from a present-our present day in the west-that is in general terms allergic to 'ideology' and convinced that 'there is no alternative'? What happens when an anodyne and self-satisfied liberalism projects its values back into an earlier era of intense political struggle? -Adam Tooze, Guardian Nuanced and erudite ... Fire and Blood is more than a history of a catastrophe that began a hundred years ago. It is also a warning of a potential future. -Ron Jacobs, CounterPunch Incisive, challenging, and compelling interpretation of the European wars of annihilation, whose consequences still reverberate. -George de Stefano, Pop Matters Remarkable. -Jonathan Sturgeon, Flavorwire This wonderful book ... is not a simple history of [the 1914-45 period]. Rather it examines the ideas which underlay the mass movements of the inter war years, and why the morality of pre-1914 Europe was undermined by a generation scarred by the horror of the First World War. -Chris Bambery, CounterFire One must admire Traverso's ambitious synthesis of theory and recent scholarship. -Shelley Baranowski, University of Akron This is engaged history at its best ... Fire and Blood is a passionate and bracing contribution to the issues that bedeviled Western political intellectuals in the age of extremism. -Russell Jacoby, UCLA, author of Bloodlust and The Last Intellectuals A remarkable study on the politics of violence. -Dan Diner, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of America in the Eyes of the Germans Fluently written and employing a synthetic approach that will appeal to the common reader. -Nitzan Lebovic, Haaretz Enzo Traverso has pulled off the rare reconstruction of a past epoch that pulsates with electric immediacy. Fire and Blood fashions events happening seventy-five-to-one-hundred years ago to feel as lively and pertinent as political debates taking place at present. - Alan Wald, Against the Current Cannot be neglected by anyone with the temerity to approach the subject in future. -Al Richardson, Revolutionary History A magisterial interpretation of an epoch that threw Europe into chaos; it is one of those great books on the twentieth century which will be discussed in the coming years. -Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine, Le Monde [A] remarkable reinterpretation of the history of the 'Thirty Years War' of the twentieth century ... recreates the ethos of this time. -Michael Löwy, Le Monde Diplomatique The latest historiographical work of Enzo Traverso is the result of years, probably decades of investigation on the topics of wars, fascist dictatorships, intellectual exile, the Holocaust and the Nazi violence. Until now, he had approached them only separately, and today, at the height of his historiographical
The narrative explores the European crisis from 1914 to 1945 as a continuous conflict, framing it as an era of civil war marked by unprecedented violence and ideological fervor. It highlights how traditional warfare evolved into a brutal struggle for annihilation, with nations experiencing profound devastation. Enzo Traverso employs diverse sources to analyze wars, revolutions, and genocides, challenging simplistic views of totalitarianism and emphasizing the emotional and intellectual currents that influenced Europe's tumultuous history during this period.
A provocative take on Jewish history, explaining the metamorphoses of mainstream Jewish culture and politics číst celé
Left-Wing Melancholia is a path breaking work that combines history and political theory with a concise, richly analytical, exciting narrative. Enzo Traverso redefines our understanding of the current regimes of temporality - a sorrowful transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century - and challenges historians and critical theorists alike to think beyond the standard binaries between history and memory, revolution and defeat, and melancholy and politics. In other words, this book is a gem. - Federico Finchelstein, The New School for Social Research