UNTIL fairly recently, it was rare to find Americans who were passionate about both medieval history and contemporary politics. Barring the odd Christian conservative, medievalists tended to lean left: a Marxist grad student, say, mucking around in land ownership patterns to show how past inequalities gave birth to present ones, or an environmentalist activist, perhaps, fascinated with vegetable-dyed handspun clothing. But when Americans invoked historical events in politics, they tended to be more recent—the founding of the republic; the struggle against slavery and segregation; victory over Nazi Germany.
This has changed. Since the September 11 attacks, the American far right has developed a fascination with the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—in particular, with the idea of the West as a united civilisation that was fending off a challenge from the East. The trend has been prodded along by the movement's discovery of its European counterparts, which have used medieval and crusader imagery since the 19th century. This is troubling to many of those who study the Middle Ages for a living.
The embrace of the medieval extends from the alt-right online forum...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2iWfXFu
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