Death to Fascism: Louis Adamic's Fight for Democracy (Working Class in American History)

__Death to Fascism__ focuses on how social justice immigrant activist Louis Adamic went from being a Slovenian peasant to leading a coalition that included black intellectuals and journalists, working-class militants, ethnic community activists, novelists, and radicals who made antifascism the dominant US political culture from the mid-1930s through 1948. By championing racial and ethnic equality, workers’ rights, and anticolonialism, Adamic and his fellow antifascists helped to transform the US understanding of democracy. From the 1920s through his death in 1951, Adamic became a celebrity because his writings tapped into a larger US identity crisis. This conflict pitted those who associated being American with a static category informed by Anglo Protestant culture against those who understood identity in a constant state of flux defined and redefined by newcomers and new ideas. Adamic shaped the latter view. During his life, he saw himself—and those he identified with—as traversing through four states of being: exile, cultural pluralist, agent of diaspora, and dedicated anticolonialist advocating a new humanism. His legacy has been lost because his anticommunist enemies, who largely succeeded in misrepresenting his beliefs after his likely murder, engaged in a conscious effort to erase him from the historical record because of the threat his ideas posed to the procorporate, hypermilitaristic, and racist outlooks baked into the Cold War liberal order. Born to Slovenian peasants, Louis Adamic commanded crowds, met with FDR and Truman, and built a prolific career as an author and journalist. Behind the scenes, he played a leading role in a coalition of black intellectuals and writers, working class militants, ethnic activists, and others that worked for a multiethnic America and against fascism. John Enyeart restores Adamic's life to the narrative of American history. Dogged and energetic, Adamic championed causes that ranged from ethnic and racial equality to worker's rights to anticolonialism. Adamic defied the consensus that equated being American with Anglo-Protestant culture. Instead, he insisted newcomers and their ideas kept the American identity in a state of dynamism that pushed it from strength to strength. In time, Adamic's views put him at odds with an establishment dedicated to cold war aggression and white supremacy. He increasingly fought smear campaigns and the distortion of his views—both of which continued after his probable murder in 1951.| Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Modernism and Exile 2. Liberating "Shadow" America 3. Smrt Fašizmu, Svoboda Narodu! 4. "Peace as a World Race Problem: 5. Anticommunists and Death Narratives Epilogue Notes Index Back cover |"Enyeart's work comes at a moment in which forging the multiracial, multiethnic, working-class-based, transnational antifascist movement Adamic championed is urgently necessary. . . . Death to Fascism is both praiseworthy and relevant to scholars and organizers alike." — North Median Review "Enyeart weaves together the questions of Americanism, immigration, antifascism, and foreign policy in a coherent and engaging fashion. . . . Death to Fascism is a well-written and engaging piece of historical research." — Social History "The objective of his book, Enyeart says, is 'recovering Adamic's legacy so that we can better understand [that] our antifascist past is vital to our future' (p. 161). His well-researched book largely achieves its objective." — Journal of Cold War Studies | John P. Enyeart is professor and chair of the Department of History at Bucknell University. He is the author of The Quest for "Just and Pure Law": Rocky Mountain Workers and American Social Democracy, 1870–1924 . "The project aims to recover the story, work, and influence of Slovenian immigrant and influential author Louis Adamic. Between the mid-1920s and his death in 1951, Adamic published thirteen books and over 500 articles in magazines such as The Nation, Harper's and the Saturday Evening Post. Crowds filled venues across the U.S. to hear him speak. High school teachers and college professors assigned his work in their courses, he won major fellowships and book awards, he consulted with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and he even succeeded in shaping American foreign policy through his activism for Slavic issues. The story of Adamic points to and revives the many narratives that got overwritten as the grand narrative of the Cold War dominated history: resistance to fascism, transnationalism, and immigrant identity, to name a few. And there's even a mystery surrounding Adamic's death--suicide or murder? Alas, it will remain unsolved, but it points to the importance of the man and his work. Adamic helps us make sense of the importance of transnationalism in a period of massive immigration, labor upheaval, and confrontations between entrenched political interests"-- Provided by publisher La 4eme de couverture indique : "Born to Slovenian peasants, Louis Adamic commanded crowds, met with FDR and Truman, and built a prolific career as an author and journalist. Behind the scenes, he played a leading role in a coalition of black intellectuals and writers, working class militants, ethnic activists, and others that worked for a multiethnic America and against fascism. John Enyeart restores Adamic's life to the narrative of American history. Dogged and energetic, Adamic championed causes that ranged from ethnic and racial equality to worker's rights to anticolonialism. Adamic defied the consensus that equated being American with Anglo-Protestant culture. Instead, he insisted newcomers and their ideas kept the American identity in a state of dynamism that pushed it from strength to strength. In time, Adamic's views put him at odds with an establishment dedicated to cold war aggression and white supremacy. He increasingly fought smear campaigns and the distortion of his views--both of which continued after his probable murder in 1951."