David Broder, "Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy" (Pluto Press, 2023)

Jan 10, 2026

David Broder, a historian focused on Italy's far right, discusses his book on the legacy of fascism in contemporary Italian politics. He delves into Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia party's direct lineage from Mussolini and its impact on modern political discourse. Broder highlights how the party manipulates historical narratives, especially regarding WWII, to gain support. He also examines the complexities of mainstreaming far-right ideologies and their connections to militant neo-fascist groups, revealing the alarming rise of these movements in Italy today.

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INSIGHT

Continuity, Not Resurrection

David Broder argues Italian far-right today is a continuous genealogy from Mussolini, not a sudden return of 1930s fascism.
The movement adapted across generations, mixing fascist elements with liberal-democratic and market assumptions.

INSIGHT

Meaning Of Post‑Fascism

Broder uses 'post-fascism' to describe parties that claim to have transcended fascism while retaining elements of it.
The term groups global far-right convergences without ignoring biographical and historical differences.

ANECDOTE

Trieste Conference Example

Broder recounts Fratelli d'Italia's 2017 Trieste conference using local history to frame modern immigration as a threat.
The party repurposed WW2 memory to cast Italians as victims and justify anti-immigrant policies.

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The fastest-rising force in Italian politics is Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia - a party with a direct genealogy from Mussolini's regime. Surging to prominence in recent years, it has waged a fierce culture war against the Left, polarised political debate around World War II, and even secured the largest vote share in Italy's 2022 general election. Eighty years after the fall of Mussolini, his heirs, and admirers are again on the brink of taking power. So how exactly has this situation come about?

Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy (Pluto Press, 2023) delves into Italy's self-styled 'post-fascist' movements - rooted in historical fascism yet claiming to have 'transcended' it. David Broder highlights the reinventions of far-right politics since the Second World War and examines the interplay between a parliamentary face aimed at integrating fascists into the mainstream and militant fringe groups which, despite their extremism, play an important role in nurturing the broader far right.

Fratelli d'Italia has retained its hegemony over fascist subcultures whilst embracing a raft of more pragmatic policy positions, fusing harsh Islamophobia and anti-communism with support for the European Union and NATO. As countervailing anti-fascist forces in Italian society wane, the far-right party's mission to redeem historical fascism, legitimize its political heirs, and shift the terrain of mainstream politics is proving alarmingly successful.

David Broder is a historian of the Italian far-right. He is a regular contributor to the New Statesman and Internazionale, writing about Italian politics, as well as Europe editor for Jacobin. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Independent, New Left Review and Tribune. He is the author of The Rebirth of Italian Communism: Dissident Communists in Rome, 1943-44 and First They Took Rome: How the Populist Right Conquered Italy.

Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel.

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