AustLit

'The editors look forward to the day when we do not feel compelled to open our editorial with a recent dramatic historical crisis. Today, however, is not that day. We have finalised the details of this issue in the shadow of the insurrection against the United States’ congress building on 6 January 2021. Even those most resistant to listening to historians have been unable to escape their demand to compare this event to key moments in the past – to Kristallnacht, to the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, to the many coup d’etats of the postwar world, or even to the revolution of 1776 (if racialist minority overthrows of constitutional governments are the comparisons one is after). Politicians, journalists, and punters around the world have been beseeching their advisers, audiences, inner souls, and the fathomless ether to answer their questions about the most appropriate analogy. What should we call this event? How did we get here? What can we do now? And what does it all foretell?' (Editorial introduction)