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About
Dr Edoardo Vaccari is a historian of political and cultural ideas, specializing in the interwar and transwar periods. He earned his PhD from the London School of Economics in 2025, with a dissertation titled The Ventotene Moment: Justice, Liberty, and European Federalism in the Political Thought of Third Force Socialism (1929–1954). This work traces the efforts of Italian socialist exiles to rethink democracy in Europe through a federalist lens. Rather than portraying wartime Europeanism merely as a precursor to the European Union, Vaccari emphasizes its origins as a complex, anti-totalitarian experiment forged in exile and persecution.
Edoardo’s current research examines how intellectuals, writers, and artists used symbolic, religious, and allegorical forms to articulate new moral and political imaginaries from the interwar period through the early postwar years. From parable-like novels and mystical essays to spiritually-inflected modernist painting, he investigates how sacred languages were mobilized to confront the crises of modernity and totalitarian politics.
Edoardo has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, alongside pieces for The Conversation, Pandora Rivista, and the Journal of the History of Ideas blog. He is currently editing a special issue of History of European Ideas based on the 2024 conference Socialist Ideas of Europe in the World, which he convened.
Before joining LSE’s doctoral program, he earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Bologna and a master’s in European history from Columbia University. He has taught widely in both the US (CUNY) and the UK (LSE, City St George), covering courses on modern international political history, interwar culture, and the history of political ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Key Expertise: International History; Intellectual and Cultural History; History of European Federalism; Interwar and Transwar Europe; History of Antifascism and Exile; Modern Religion.
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News
Edoardo Vaccari publishes new piece in The Conversation
Edoardo Vaccari has written about the political afterlife of the Ventotene Manifesto, a 1941 call for a federal Europe drafted by anti-fascist prisoners.
In his piece, he examines how Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s recent attack on the Manifesto has sparked a polarised debate—revealing how both left and right are weaponising history to serve their present agendas.
Read the article HERE
Conference "Socialist Ideas of Europe in the World, 1871 - 1968": Recordings and Blog Write up
A few months ago, we hosted a thought-provoking conference organized by our own Edoardo Vaccari, titled "Socialist Ideas of Europe in the World, 1871-1968."
The event explored the history of socialist thought and its relevance to today’s international left. Scholars, students, and activists came together to discuss key socialist figures and traditions, sparking debates on the challenges facing socialism in a global context.
A write-up is now available on the Journal of the History of Ideas blog, and for those interested:
https://www.jhiblog.org/2024/09/12/what-direction-for-the-history-of-socialist-ideas-reflections-from-the-socialist-ideas-of-europe-in-the-world-conference-at-lse/
You can also watch/listen to the recordings of the conference here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/Podcasts