Introduction to Gaither Stewart’s Trails of Memory: A Century of Nazism, by Rowan Wolf

Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally

Image by Anthony Crider via Flickr

Sent to Dandelion Salad by Gaither Stewart

by Rowan Wolf
November 30, 2021

I did not realize until I read Trails of Memory – A Century of Nazism how much that time and political movement has harmonics in this time. I am in the U.S., where decades of effort on the part of one of the major political parties – Republicans – moved them, and perhaps the nation, deeper and deeper to the right. At the same time, the efforts of capitalists continued to break the bonds of community and the treads of continuity, while the broader efforts of Republicans created a more jaded and less informed public. I did know from my studies of white nationalism that it was an ideology that actively spanned continents and was not just contained to North America. Likewise, this movement towards right-wing populism is not confined to the United States, and it is not the only nation experiencing the awful allure of strongman leaders with dreams of dictatorial rule.

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