Nationalism, Racism, and Ancient History: Historiography and Uses of the Past in Interwar Europe (1918-1939)

Between the two World Wars, many European countries propagated nationalist and racist narratives based on idealized images of a distant past. The role of ancient history (both as a scientific discipline and as a repository of figures, places, people) in the elaboration of these narratives in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany is well-documented, whereas significantly less is known about how ancient history was studied and mobilized in other national contexts during the Interwar period. The comp...