The Ideological Origins of the Dirty War: Fascism, Populism, and Dictatorship in Twentieth Century Argentina - Hardcover

In this masterwork written with a limpid style and an admirable conceptual clarity, Federico Finchelstein proves that, far from being merely 'imported,' fascism had deep roots in Argentina, where it appeared in the early 1930s as a peculiar symbiosis of radical nationalism and reactionary Catholicism. His book is a fundamental contribution to the historiography of transnational fascism and the origins of the 'Dirty War. (Enzo Traverso, author of The Origins of Nazi Violence)

The originality of the book lies in its analysis of modern Argentinian history through the optic of political violence and the construction of a genealogy of authoritarianism and diminishing regard for human rights dating from the 1920s. (Colin M. Lewis, English Historical Review)

This book tells the history of modern Argentina through the lens 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, antisemitism 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, explaining why they were disproportionately victimized by the military dictatorship.

The Dirty War was not a real war, Federico Finchelstein argues, but an illegal militarization of state repression. This popularized term needs to be explained in terms of the fascist genealogies that The Ideological Origins of the Dirty War 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 was shaped 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).