Claremont McKenna College

Fascism in Italy: Origins and Ideology

CHARLES DELZELL

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1993

Recent news accounts have, with disconcerting frequency and in unsettling detail, provided all to many indications that Fascism never completely died out. When we read or hear of wilderness communes that serve as havens for (nominally Christian) white supremacists, or of the marauding of gangs of youths (American and European) who carry out their often violent-always hateful-demonstrations in the name of "national pride," we have more evidence than we need that the monster that is Fascism has survived all of the world's best attempts to eradicate it.

Of what was Fascism born? How and why does it endure? To discover the answers to these questions and to provide insight into the issues surrounding them, Dr. Myra Moss, professor of philosophy at CMC and Associate director of the Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, has devoted an academic seminar and supporting Athenaeum speakers series to examining the ideological roots and current manifestations; of 20th-century European Fascism. Charles F. Delzell will deliver the first in a series of five presentations on the origins of one of our century's most baneful threats to basic human rights and liberties.

Professor Delzell, adjunct professor of history at Vanderbilt University, first won recognition as a pioneer in the study of European resistance movements with the 1961 publication of his Mussolini's Enemies. He has received many awards and citations over a distinguished career of teaching and writing on complex historical problems, particularly those related to the beginnings and early ascendancy of Italian Fascism.

We look forward to your joining us for what promises to be a most enlightening presentation on issues that continue to have profound and far-reaching implications.