This book offers a fresh perspective on right-wing and left-wing revolutions, as well as political uprisings against the liberal order in interwar Europe, focusing on how they were politically used in the public sphere and exploring how these events were narrated and visually represented to justify new authoritarian systems and generate consensus around them.

Bringing together both senior academics and early-career scholars, the volume examines ten emblematic case studies combining original research on overlooked aspects of well-known events with analyses of lesser-studied, or even ‘peripheral’ cases. To provide a comprehensive understanding, the contributors approach the subject from multiple angles, spanning political and cultural history, the history of ideology and emotions, and gender history.

Moreover, with a transnational perspective, the book examines how anti-liberal and anti-democratic ideas crossed borders, shaping movements, parties, and regimes by influencing their symbolic practices and aesthetics—elements that were borrowed, adapted, and reinterpreted to create a shared political language across Europe and beyond.