Spanning the political chaos of 1920s Italy, Benito Mussolini transforms from socialist journalist to Italy’s brutal dictator, starting with his Blackshirts militia to the establishment of an authoritarian rule that would go on to set Europe aflame.
Mussolini: Son of the Century
Mussolini: Son of the Century is a biographical historical drama television series directed by Joe Wright, based on the 2018 novel M: Son of the Century by Antonio Scurati. Starring Luca Marinelli as Benito Mussolini, the series centers on the early political career of Mussolini in the 1920s. It premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2024 and began airing on Sky Atlantic on 10 January 2025.
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and the Rise of Italian Fascism: A Cross-City Quantitative and Historical Text Qualitative Analysis
Evidence linking past experiences of worsening health with support for radical political views has generated concerns about the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The influenza pandemic that began in 1918 had a devastating health impact: 4.1 million Italians contracted influenza and about 500 000 died. We tested the hypothesis that deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to the rise of Fascism in Italy. To provide a “thicker” interpretation of these patterns, we applied historical text mining to the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia (Mussolini’s newspaper). Our observations were consistent with evidence from other contexts that worsening mortality rates can fuel radical politics. Unequal impacts of pandemics may contribute to political polarization. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(2):242–247. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306574)
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic and the Rise of Italian Fascism: A Cross-City Quantitative and Historical Text Qualitative Analysis
Evidence linking past experiences of worsening health with support for radical political views has generated concerns about the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The influenza pandemic that began in 1918 had a devastating health impact: 4.1 million Italians contracted influenza and about 500 000 died. We tested the hypothesis that deaths from the 1918 influenza pandemic contributed to the rise of Fascism in Italy. To provide a “thicker” interpretation of these patterns, we applied historical text mining to the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia (Mussolini’s newspaper). Our observations were consistent with evidence from other contexts that worsening mortality rates can fuel radical politics. Unequal impacts of pandemics may contribute to political polarization. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(2):242–247. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306574 )
Here's a PDF Version of the CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism
A 404 Media reader made a PDF version of the World War II-era manual that's going viral right now.
Italy's Radical Solution to Extreme Inequality
Reflections on Habermas; Luzzato's "The First Fascist"
Reading, Watching 03.15.26
The Names They Call Themselves
*Fascist* and *Nazi* weren’t slurs that were applied to the Italians and Germans by their political or military opponents. That’s what they called themselves. The job won’t be done, this era of madness will not end, until we make *the names Trump’s regime calls themselves* universally acknowledged slurs.
Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’
More than four decades after his Holocaust story Maus transformed the graphic novel genre, Art Spiegelman discusses Trump, the shadow of 9/11 and the rise of fascism in America
CRISES AVERTED. How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural-Demographic Crises
Historians and social scientists have long been preoccupied with understanding and documenting periods of crisis. Such emphasis is only growing, and becoming more pressing, as the world continues to face a number of interrelated stressors in the form of irreversible climate change, major ecological shocks and disease outbreaks, eruptions of military violence, economic disruptions and deepening inequalities, political polarization and unrest, the rise of authoritarian and nationalist regimes. Crises in these domains are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, there are instances in the historical record of societies managing to turn the tide of crisis even as violence and social turmoil grow. Here, we focus on four such cases of crises mitigated with structural reforms revealed from our previous historical analyses: early Republican Rome, mid-19th century England and Russia, USA during the the late 20th to early 21st centuries. Utilizing structural demographic theory as a lens to explore these cases, we seek to expose the pressures that built up leading to crisis and the early signs of violent confrontation revealed by these societies, as well as to examine the conditions and key decisions made in the midst of this unrest that allowed these societies to turn the tide and enact significant structural adaptations. Our findings have clear relevance to understanding and navigating similar crises in contemporary societies.
Understanding How Propaganda Works Helps Fight Fascism
In order to effectively fight fascism, it is essential to understand how propaganda, a key tool of fascist groups, works.
[UNLOCKED] How Fascism Works (a Michael Parenti Reading)
Corporations and the Nazi regime
It is apparent, 90 years after the beginnings of the Nazi period, that large corporations played an important and lamentable role in Nazi power and administration, and the implementation of the atr…
It Was Fascism All Along
When we emphasize a distinction between conservatism and fascism, we obscure the structural logic that ties the right-wing project together.
« Il a entubé tout le monde » : un expert du climat dénonce une « erreur politique » d’Emmanuel Macron sur le sujet
Le paléoclimatologue Jean Jouzel regrette le manque d’ambition d’Emmanuel Macron...
Italian Citizenship by Descent - Italian Citizenship Jure Sanguinis | IDC
Jure Sanguinis translates to "by law of the bloodline" and is an Italian law that allows someone to obtain Italian citizenship by descent.
Thanos Angelopoulos on Twitter / X
Please do not call Elon Musk a fascist. He is not a fascist. He has simply endorsed a post arguing that universal suffrage causes "universal suffering", that the population must be divided into "makers" and "takers", and that "takers" should lose the right to vote. He replied "I… pic.twitter.com/DNThZrexFL— Thanos Angelopoulos (@Th_Angelopoulos) July 4, 2026
