Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919-1945

Federico Finchelstein analyzes the rise of early 20th century Italian and Argentinean Fascism as both a transnational movement and as a set of distinct nationalist phenomena, with particular emphasis on its interaction with religion. Finchelstein illuminates the efforts of Mussolini and the Italian Fascists to export Italian fascism to Argentina, and the tandem effort of Argentinean fascists to repackage and re-conceptualize the Italian model in a locally relevant manner. The major Argentinean innovation, Finchelstein argues, was the appropriation of Catholic rhetoric and symbols into the Fascist project. Finchelstein traces the legacy of Catholic-Fascist synergy through later Argentinean Nationalist movements, including the Peronist movements in the 1940s and 1950s.