The extremes of englishness: The ‘exceptional’ ideology of Anthony Mario Ludovici

Abstract

Scholarly work on the British extreme right has examined many of Anthony Mario Ludovici's colleagues, but has until now paid no attention to Ludovici himself. Yet the many books and articles he published not only illustrate the variety of strands which fed into the extreme right; they also provide, thanks to Ludovici's steadfast maintenance of his principles over so long a period, an excellent case study in the changing fortunes of British extremism. Here I trace Ludovici's ideology from its roots in Nietzsche and Edwardian politics through the range of his intellectual and political pursuits over the decades until his death in 1971. I argue that his thinking moved from being on the fringes of mainstream before 1914 to extremist and outcast by the post‐1945 period. Not only does Ludovici demonstrate that British extremism did not simply look to the continent for inspiration, he shows that stubbornly clinging to ideas which initially fuelled the British far‐right also ultimately brought about its demise.