Portside

In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America. Their books — along with Sinatra’s song and film; Richard Wright’s memoir, coincided with a surge of activism.

Judith Berlowitz’s historical novel offers readers a peek into the Spanish Civil War and the idealism that brought people from across the globe together to fight for democratic governance and human rights.

Here is a history of fascism in Europe that may be helpful as we consider this troubled, and troubling, moment.

In the early years of Nazi rule, the vagueness of much Nazi ideology enabled many Germans to see in Nazism what they wanted to see.

Three efforts to right historical wrongs - Nuremberg Trials' prosecution of Nazi war crimes but not crimes against its own people, South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation established the former if not the latter, and today's demand for reparations.

Some saw the collapse of the German Empire as a decisive and traumatic break in the historical continuity of the state. Nothing, in the book author’s view, more profoundly exemplified this revolt against history than National Socialism.