Fascism certainly ruined a lot of folklore for future generations. Whatmay have once been art was now camp. But Eric Storm''s important book nowrescues us from the stranglehold of fascism by showing us how European culturesof regionalism were thoroughly modern constructions meant to compete withofficial culture during the period roughly spanning 1890-1945. Storm''s work isan ambitious study of regionalism in France, Germany, and Spain via the mediaof painting, architecture, and exhibitions, and it is through his comparativeexplorations that he tells us a great deal about nationalism and cultural creation inthis period.Instead of viewing regionalism as something that was subsumed by theconstruction of national identities, he argues that "[r]egional identities . weremore precisely defined or even invented after 1890 when the correspondingnational identity had already largely crystallised" (6). Regionalist culturesremained "organically connected to the broader fatherland" and they reallyrepresented "a new phase in the nation-building process as most ''new'' regionalidentities supplemented the existing national identities by vastly broadening thenational heritage and by providing it with local roots" (10). He also argues thatregionalist culture was innovative, international in scope, and--mostcompellingly--that it vied with avant-garde culture as the most competitivealternative to official culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

For the purposes of this review and for the book itself, it is important to note thatStorm sees "regionalism" as a neutral term describing a "movement that promotedthe study, construction and reinforcement of regional identity" (6). This definitionis in contrast to what scholars might call "regional nationalism," which was apolitical and cultural call for regional autonomy or independence, as seen inplaces like the Basque Country or Catalonia. This distinction is necessarybecause regional nationalists tended to reject the regionalist cultural movementsdiscussed in this book.Storm''s work covers painting, architecture, and international/nationalexhibitions. He examines the ideological suppositions behind French, German,and Spanish regional artists'' works, as well as critics'' responses to these works.France took the lead in regionalist painting, whereas the Germans accelerated thetrend toward regionalist architecture, and the Spanish toward regionalistexhibitions.Generally, regionalist painters appropriated the impressionists'' artistictechniques, but instead of choosing an impressionist picturesque tableau, theregionalists sought to depict "quite unimpressive, flat landscapes of coastal planesand arid plateaux" (think Castile) and peopled their canvasses with "clearlyidentifiable types . dressed in the traditional costume of a specific village .

"(27). The regionalist painters chose to paint regions that they deemed "mosttypical" (67) of their nation and which seemed least touched by foreign influence,such as Brittany and Castile. The painters of these regions believed that bycapturing the essence of these harsh landscapes and their inhabitants, they could"reveal the most profound character of the nation as a whole" (68). Stormprovides an intriguing analysis of regionalist artists'' contributions to artisticmodernism when he states that regional artists "were taken seriously by [their]opponents . as an almost completely forgotten negative impetus to twentiethcenturyavant-garde movements" (66). On a weaker note, while Storm makes agood case for Ignacio Zuloaga''s role in developing Castile as the focus ofregionalist painting in Spain, the other important regionalist painter, JoaquínSorolla, is mostly ignored in the narrative.Turning to architecture, Storm traces the development of regionalist stylesand ideology in the early twentieth century. Influenced by the British Arts andCraft movement, German architects--followed closely thereafter by the Frenchand Spanish--rejected both "historicist" and urban architecture in favor of anorganic one that took as its inspiration the on-site materials of a particular (rural)region--e.

g., local trees, stones--and the climatic conditions of said region.Although regionalist architects might have been hampered by the choices theirwealthy clients made, they still strove to make houses that adhered to theseorganic conditions, building dwellings that were more function than facade, andusing local artisans to complete the projects. These country houses would then beretreats for the urban bourgeoisie who needed calming from the disorientingeffects of the modern city. For the proletariat who could not escape the confinesof the city, regional architects began to build "garden cities" in various regionalstyles in the hopes of domesticating the increasingly politicized workers byproviding them with cheap, clean, well-ventilated dwellings. All of these regionalarchitectural styles were meant to contribute to the general Volksgeist of thenation, but "in many cases a more dogmatic regionalism was soon diluted to amore generic identification with the countryside . " (185). After World WarOne, France and Germany faced housing shortages, and regional, artisanalhousing priced itself out of the market.

The final section of the book concentrates on the representation of regionand nation in the international exhibitions in Barcelona and Seville (1929) andParis (1937), and the national exhibitions in Munich (1934) and Düsseldorf(1937). In all of these exhibitions, architects constructed a medley of "regional"areas that were meant to represent their respective nations as a whole. By thistime, however, as Storm notes, "these immense shows were partially meant torevive regionalism, [but] in the end they would only confirm its inevitabledecline" (195). In the end, these architectural regional-nations writ small wouldnot serve to revive the nationalist impulse, but to sell tickets to tourists (the PobleEspanyol in Barcelona comes to mind) or to simulate regional architecture insuburban housing.There is much more to say--but little space--about this fascinating book.The book leaves one with questions that cannot be settled here, but that might beworth looking into in the future. Since, as Storm has argued, regional painting andarchitecture were created in Europe as gateways to reinforcing national identity,and since regionalism represented a stage in a long process of creating nationalidentity, did emerging regional nationalisms like those emanating from Catalonia,the Basque Country, or Galicia require different cultural idioms to express theirmore separatist agendas? In other words, did Catalan or Basque nationalism haveto be expressed linguistically, through poetry and prose only, in order to expressdifferences from the nation-state at large? How do places with strong regionalidentities like those found in Spain, recover or recreate regional cultural identitiesthat became kitschified by fascism''s cultural manipulations? Is regional culturereally possible in an increasingly interconnected world?Eric Storm has provided us with a window into European nationalism andregionalism at the turn of the twentieth century, and his book will be mostvaluable to cultural historians and historians of nationalism, no matter whichnation they study.