This book locates totalitarianism in the vastly complex web of fragmented pasts, diverse presents, and differently envisaged futures to enhance understanding of the fraught era in European history. It explores empirical ways to the resurgence of the concept of totalitarian dictatorship.

1. Beyond the Delusion: New Histories of Totalitarian Dictatorship 2. Cold Empathy: Perpetrator Studies and the Challenges in Writing a Life of Reinhard Heydrich 3. The Life and Death of Colonel-General Blaskowitz 4. Stalin and the World of Culture 5. The Great Manipulator: Francisco Franco 6. Blueblood and Blacksmith: A Comparative View of Churchill’s and Mussolini’s Speeches 7. “A Place in the Sun”: The Conquest of Ethiopia in 1935–1936 as Seen in Contemporary Diaries 8. “Wrapped in Passionless Impartiality?” Italian Psychiatry during the Fascist Regime 9. Coercion, Consent, and Accommodation in the Third Reich 10. Peasants into Nationals: Violence, War, and the Making of Turks and Greeks, 1912–1922 11. Learning from the Enemy? Entangling Histories of the German-Soviet War, 1941–1945 12. Genocide in a Multiethnic Town: Event, Origins, Aftermath 13. Memories of an Exodus: Istria, Fiume, Dalmatia, Trieste, Italy, 1943–2010

"…this collection…brings together a fine cast of leading historians…to rethink aspects of twentieth-century European totalitarians dictatorships. The editors deserve praise for having assembled a strong collection of essays which are likely to prompt further debate on the nature of twentieth-century European dictatorships." -Christian Goeschel, University of Manchester, UK