"The editors, Helen Roche and Kyriakos N. Demetriou, are to be commended for so successfully juxtaposing the totalitarian Classicism of Fascist Italy with that of National Socialist Germany, as there is much to be gained by examining these two approaches to totalitarian Classicism together. (...) This Companion is also a disturbing reminder of how often scholars and teachers have instigated and conspired in the dissemination of a particular version of history that aligns with a corrupt leaders own identification with an idealized past." Susan A. Curry, University of New Hampshire, in: CJ-Online Review 2021.03.08.
The sixteen chapters by fourteen contributors are all well-written, relevant and carefully edited. Some offer useful overviews of broader themes (e.g. the fine chapters by Nelis and Arthurs), whereas other contributions discuss more specific topics in detail (e.g. interesting chapters by Wildmann, Piovan, and Porter). () One of the merits of this excellent concluding chapter is the fact that Fortunas contribution actively seeks a dialogue with the previous chapters, offering reflections that underline the high quality of this last section, and of the companion as a whole. -Nathalie de Haan, in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.03.30
"It may be tempting to mine an edited volume simply for the individual chapters that pertain to a researchers area of interest, but a complete reading here provides considerable additional rewards. To begin with, the Companion is masterfully edited, with not only numerous cross-references, but actual dialogue across chapters dealing with similar or parallel issues. As I hope to have described above, the volume, while organized thematically, is also constructed to introduce concepts and interpretations with increasing complexity." - Genevieve S. Gessert, in: History of Humanities, Fall 2018, pp. 456-459
"[ I]n Brills Companion to the Classics, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany fourteen authors (in sixteen contributions) give an excellent introduction to the role and position of the classical tradition in Mussolinis Italy and Hitlers Germany. (...) The classical past, so this companion brilliantly teaches its readers, was not only an ornamental, a rhetorical or aesthetic propaganda instrument, but an integral part of Fascist and National Socialist reality. (...) This rich and much-needed companion not only stimulates discussion on a factual and theoretical level, but also inspires additional research. After all, during the first part of the twentieth century, the classics were part and parcel of European society as a whole." - Martijn Eickhoff, in: Fascism vol. 7, no. 2 (2018)
