The success of new far-right movements cannot be explained by fear or rage alone - the
pleasures of aggression and violence are just as essential. As such racism is particularly
intense when it is erotically charged migration presenting as a sexual threat to white women
being one of many examples. Germany's strikingly successful right-wing political party
Alternative für Deutschland is according to the historian Dagmar Herzog characterized by this
"sexy racism" with its second main feature being that of an obsessive antidisability hostility
- both elements resonating strongly with Nazism. In The New Fascist Body Herzog connects her
analysis of fascism's libidinous energy with its animus against bodies perceived as imperfect.
Only by studying the emotional and intellectual worlds of past fascisms can we understand and
combat their current manifestations. The book features an afterword by Alberto Toscano author
of Late Fascism: Race Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis (Verso 2023).
