New Books in Critical Theory Alec Ryrie, "The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It" (Reaktion, 2025)
Mar 15, 2026
Alec Ryrie, a historian of Christianity and fellow of the British Academy, examines why Hitler and Nazism dominate our cultural imagination. He traces this moral shift from religion to anti‑Nazi values. Conversations touch on pop culture echoes, signs the anti‑Nazi consensus is fraying, and what positive moral frameworks might replace a merely anti‑evil stance.
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Hitler As Our Central Moral Reference
- Adolf Hitler became the dominant negative moral exemplar after 1945, replacing Jesus as the central reference for right and wrong in Euro-American culture.
- Alec Ryrie traces this shift to postwar secularization and the way anti-Nazi consensus reframed values by defining goodness as the opposite of Nazism.
Childhood Question That Cemented Hitler's Role
- Ryrie recalls asking his mother as a child who the worst person ever was and hearing Hitler's name given as the obvious answer.
- That memory exemplifies how ordinary families passed down Hitler as the cultural touchstone for evil.
Postwar Anti-Nazi Consensus Is Unraveling
- The anti-Nazi moral consensus formed a fragile global value system after WWII that is now unraveling as living memory fades and politics polarizes.
- Ryrie argues this consensus masked limits: it defined values negatively and left us ill-equipped for new, diffuse evils like resurgent antisemitism.
