The Fiume Crisis

Recasting the birth of fascism, nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I, Dominique Kirchner Reill recounts how the people of Fiume tried to recreate empire in the guise of the nation. The Fiume Crisis recasts what we know about the birth of fascism, the rise of nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I by telling the story of the three-year period when the Adriatic city of Fiume (today Rijeka, in Croatia) generated an international crisis. In 1919 the multicultural former Habsburg city was occupied by the paramilitary forces of the flamboyant poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio, who aimed to annex the territory to Italy and became an inspiration to Mussolini. Many local Italians supported the effort, nurturing a standard tale of nationalist fanaticism. However, Dominique Kirchner Reill shows that practical realities, not nationalist ideals, were in the driver’s seat. Support for annexation was largely a result of the daily frustrations of life in a “ghost state” set adrift by the fall of the empire. D’Annunzio’s ideology and proto-fascist charisma notwithstanding, what the people of Fiume wanted was prosperity, which they associated with the autonomy they had enjoyed under Habsburg sovereignty. In these twilight years between the world that was and the world that would be, many across the former empire sought to restore the familiar forms of governance that once supported them. To the extent that they turned to nation-states, it was not out of zeal for nationalist self-determination but in the hope that these states would restore the benefits of cosmopolitan empire. Against the too-smooth narrative of postwar nationalism, The Fiume Crisis demonstrates the endurance of the imperial imagination and carves out an essential place for history from below.

Recasting the birth of fascism, nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I, Dominique Kirchner Reill recounts how the people of Fiume tried to recreate empire in the guise of the nation. The Fiume Crisis recasts what we know about the birth of fascism, the rise of nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I by telling the story of the three-year period when the Adriatic city of Fiume (today Rijeka, in Croatia) generated an international crisis. In 1919 the multicultural former Habsburg city was occupied by the paramilitary forces of the flamboyant poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio, who aimed to annex the territory to Italy and became an inspiration to Mussolini. Many local Italians supported the effort, nurturing a standard tale of nationalist fanaticism. However, Dominique Kirchner Reill shows that practical realities, not nationalist ideals, were in the driver’s seat. Support for annexation was largely a result of the daily frustrations of life in a “ghost state” set adrift by the fall of the empire. D’Annunzio’s ideology and proto-fascist charisma notwithstanding, what the people of Fiume wanted was prosperity, which they associated with the autonomy they had enjoyed under Habsburg sovereignty. In these twilight years between the world that was and the world that would be, many across the former empire sought to restore the familiar forms of governance that once supported them. To the extent that they turned to nation-states, it was not out of zeal for nationalist self-determination but in the hope that these states would restore the benefits of cosmopolitan empire. Against the too-smooth narrative of postwar nationalism, The Fiume Crisis demonstrates the endurance of the imperial imagination and carves out an essential place for history from below.

We can often learn as much from political movements that failed as from those that achieved their goals. Nationalists Who Feared the Nation looks at one such frustrated movement: a group of community leaders and writers in Venice, Trieste, and Dalmatia during the 1830s, 40s, and 50s who proposed the creation of a multinational zone surrounding the Adriatic Sea. At the time, the lands of the Adriatic formed a maritime community whose people spoke different languages and practiced different faiths but identified themselves as belonging to a single region of the Hapsburg Empire. While these activists hoped that nationhood could be used to strengthen cultural bonds, they also feared nationalism's homogenizing effects and its potential for violence. This book demonstrates that not all nationalisms attempted to create homogeneous, single-language, -religion, or -ethnicity nations. Moreover, in treating the Adriatic lands as one unit, this book serves as a correction to "national" histories that impose our modern view of nationhood on what was a multinational region.

A no-holds-barred rags-to-riches story of finding your purpose and living a life of no regrets. Running with My Head Down is the inspirational story of one man’s search for purpose and meaning, a quest without limitation that ultimately leads to unique business success and personal fulfillment. A native of Queens, New York, Frank was born into a working-class family, surrounded by the unified love of his parents. But in the mid-1970s, the nine-year-old was deeply impacted by his parents’ divorce. Emotional and financial turmoil follow, fueling Frank’s burning passion to discover his direction in life, and with it, certainty and security. During his difficult school years when Frank was underestimated by teachers, he discovered his love of baseball—not just playing it, but becoming a fanatical student of the game. It became an all-out obsession that he would later turn into a multi-million-dollar franchise sports business by creating his own leagues. Follow Frank’s journey from his early days after college unhappily working in medical sales to the brilliant stroke of starting an adult softball league—and then to strategically expanding his dream by creating i9 Sports, which becomes the nation’s largest youth sports franchise. After much inner struggle about defining his true purpose in life, Frank ultimately sell his company, having had a startling epiphany. Through it all, we see how Frank’s purpose finds him again and again. A series of unique people come into his life, including peak performance coach Tony Robbins, who has a profound effect on Frank’s personal development. No matter what obstacles arise, Frank remains laser-focused, always purposely running with his head down. This guide to personal and professional growth is filled with valuable strategies relevant to entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to lead a happier life. Transformative lessons and business insights include— • The Passion Priority: How to transform the needs of your soul into reality, channeling the power of your vision. • The Live Your Life With No Regrets Motto: Learn when to take a risk and go all in—banking on passion, not on security. • The Entrepreneur Identity Crisis: How to overcome the self-limiting belief that your identity is your business. • The Lonely at the Top Syndrome: How to build a solid relationship with your employees without losing your authority and the secret to overcoming CEO isolation. • The Executive Burnout Phase: Identifying the signs of mental and physical overload and utilizing powerful techniques for restoring life balance. • The Affluenza Affair: How to recreate the spark in your business in order to feel the same ambition and hunger as you once did. • The Critics and Crises: How to handle internal company crises and external criticism. • The Influence of Family and Friends: How to deal with a skeptical support network—and what to do when their advice, values, and judgments don’t match yours. • The Spiritual Awakening: How to expand your self-awareness through a passionate commitment to personal growth and self-care. • And More! Frank graduated from St. John’s University and began a career as a medical equipment sales rep, though he was determined to pursue his life’s true purpose. So in l995, he created his own adult men’s softball league, ABA Sports. The start-up company quickly grew to over 900 teams in just six years, making it the largest adult sports organization on Long Island. In 2003, Frank sold ABA Sports in order to create i9 Sports, a business that catapulted him to national recognition and that Entrepreneur magazine ranked as the #1 children’s fitness franchise. Frank has been featured on Fox Business News, HBO Real Sports, and in dozens of publications and national news media outlets, including USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and The Wall Street Journal. Frank sold i9 Sports in 2017 to a private equity firm, but remains a minority shareholder and member of the board of directors. He resides in the Tampa Bay area with his wife, Nadine, their children, Taylor-Marie and Frankie, and their Chocolate Lab, Dillon.

George Louis Beer Prize Winner Wallace K. Ferguson Prize Finalist A Marginal Revolution Book of the Year “A groundbreaking contribution...Intellectual history at its best.” —Stephen Wertheim, Foreign Affairs Neoliberals hate the state. Or do they? In the first intellectual history of neoliberal globalism, Quinn Slobodian follows a group of thinkers from the ashes of the Habsburg Empire to the creation of the World Trade Organization to show that neoliberalism emerged less to shrink government and abolish regulations than to redeploy them at a global level. It was a project that changed the world, but was also undermined time and again by the relentless change and social injustice that accompanied it. “Slobodian’s lucidly written intellectual history traces the ideas of a group of Western thinkers who sought to create, against a backdrop of anarchy, globally applicable economic rules. Their attempt, it turns out, succeeded all too well.” —Pankaj Mishra, Bloomberg Opinion “Fascinating, innovative...Slobodian has underlined the profound conservatism of the first generation of neoliberals and their fundamental hostility to democracy.” —Adam Tooze, Dissent “The definitive history of neoliberalism as a political project.” —Boston Review

This book sees the sweeping changes of the 20th century through the eyes of 14 Bostonians in an attempt to understand the disorienting experiences of recent history. These lives span the years from 1850 to 1980, a time when American cities were being rebuilt according to the specifications of science, engineering, mass wealth, and big corporations.

As Castro’s democratic reform movement veered off course, a revolution that seemed to signal the death knell of dictatorship in Latin America brought about its tragic opposite. Jonathan C. Brown examines in forensic detail how the turmoil that rocked a small Caribbean nation in the 1950s became one of the century’s most transformative events.

This is the first detailed and definitive study of the development and initial success of fascism as it originated in Italy right after the First World War.