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In the context of Fascism and National Socialism, politically-themed literary fiction for the youth was often employed as a bridge between public education and pre-military training, aiding the continued indoctrination of young people. This article analyses two prominent Fascist and national-socialist youth novels—Ragazzi della rivoluzione by Gino Fornari (1940) and Der Hitlerjunge Quex by Karl Aloys Schenzinger (1932)—to observe this praxis in a comparative context. Focusing on the representation of two primary themes in the fascist education of youth—violence and self-sacrifice—it examines the narrative strategies employed to encourage identification, agitation and emulation in the reader. Despite a similar depiction of the enemy, a discernible interest in exceptional individual qualities emerges on the Fascist side, contrasting with the Nazi will to self-nullification. Consequently, the authors allow for different degrees of agency in the conversion of their protagonists, reflected in their unequal access to violence. Finally, the contrasting narratives of youth martyrdom, as presented in the novels, are contextualised within the shifting political priorities that characterised the distinct historical phases of the regimes in question.

In this short adapted-excerpt essay from Cynthia Miller-Idriss’s book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism (Princeton University Press, 2025), Miller-Idriss offers a brief analysis of three ways that gender-based grievances are fueling antidemocratic and authoritarian trends. First, the author traces how those grievances are instrumentalized, weaponized, and manipulated by online influencers, profiteers, and right-wing populist and conservative politicians. Second, Miller-Idriss examines how those grievances have been mainstreamed and amplified through popular culture, the media, and rampant online misogyny in social media and other online spaces. And finally, she addresses the role that women play in enabling, reinforcing, and legitimizing gendered grievances in ways that have strengthened authoritarian and antidemocratic movements, including across the far right.