The book tells the history of modern Argentina as seen from the perspective of political violence and ideology. It focuses on the theory and practice of the fascist idea in Argentine political culture throughout the twentieth century. It analyzes the connections between fascist theory and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the military junta’s practices of torture and state violence (1976-1983), its networks of concentration camps and extermination. The destruction of the rule of law and military state terror represent the end road of the twisted historical path of Argentine and Latin American d ... More

The book tells the history of modern Argentina as seen from the perspective of political violence and ideology. It focuses on the theory and practice of the fascist idea in Argentine political culture throughout the twentieth century. It analyzes the connections between fascist theory and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and the military junta’s practices of torture and state violence (1976-1983), its networks of concentration camps and extermination. The destruction of the rule of law and military state terror represent the end road of the twisted historical path of Argentine and Latin American dictatorships. The book emphasizes the genocidal dimensions of the persecution of Argentine Jewish victims. The “Dirty War” was not a real war but an illegal militarization of state repression. This popularized term needs to be explained in terms of the fascist genealogies that the book explores. From a historical perspective, the “Dirty War” did not feature two combatants but rather victims and perpetrators. In fact, the state made “war” against its citizens. This state-sanctioned terror had its roots in fascist ideology, tracing a history from the fascist movements of the interwar war years to the concentration camps. Argentine fascism shaped the country’s political culture. The Argentine road to fascism began in the 1920s and 1930s and from then on continued to acquire many political and ideological reformulations and personifications, from Peronism (1943-1955) to terrorist right-wing organizations in the 1960s (especially Tacuara and the Triple A) to the last military dictatorship (1976-1983).