The Birth Of Fascist Ideology

When The Birth of Fascist Ideology was first published in 1989 in France and at the beginning of 1993 in Italy, it aroused a storm of response, positive and negative, to Zeev Sternhell's controversial interpretations. In Sternhell's view, fascism was much more than an episode in the history of Italy. He argues here that it possessed a coherent ideology with deep roots in European civilization. Long before fascism became a political force, he maintains, it was a major cultural phenomenon. This important book further asserts that although fascist ideology was grounded in a revolt against the Enlightenment, it was not a reactionary movement. It represented, instead, an ideological alternative to Marxism and liberalism and competed effectively with them by positing a revolt against modernity. Sternhell argues that the conceptual framework of fascism played an important role in its development. Building on radical nationalism and an "antimaterialist" revision of Marxism, fascism sought to destroy the existing political order and to uproot its theoretical and moral foundations. At the same time, its proponents wished to preserve all the achievements of modern technology and the advantages of the market economy. Nevertheless, fascism opposed every "bourgeois" value: universalism, humanism, progress, natural rights, and equality. Thus, as Sternhell shows, the fascists adopted the economic aspect of liberalism but completely denied its philosophical principles and the intellectual and moral heritage of modernity.

"Few books on European history in recent memory have caused such controversy and commotion," wrote Robert Wohl in 1991 in a major review of Neither Right nor Left. Listed by Le Monde as one of the forty most important books published in France during the 1980s, this explosive work asserts that fascism was an important part of the mainstream of European history, not just a temporary development in Germany and Italy but a significant aspect of French culture as well. Neither right nor left, fascism united antibourgeois, antiliberal nationalism, and revolutionary syndicalist thought, each of which joined in reflecting the political culture inherited from eighteenth-century France. From the first, Sternhell's argument generated strong feelings among people who wished to forget the Vichy years, and his themes drew enormous public attention in 1994, as Paul Touvier was condemned for crimes against humanity and a new biography probed President Mitterand's Vichy connections. The author's new preface speaks to the debates of 1994 and reinforces the necessity of acknowledging the past, as President Chirac has recently done on France's behalf.

This is the first detailed and definitive study of the development and initial success of fascism as it originated in Italy right after the First World War.

Utilizing hitherto unexplored material that has become available only after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, this book examines the Monist philosophy of the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, and its role in stimulating the birth of Fascist ideology in Italy and France. Focusing on the relevance of evolutionary science, Fascist thought is revealed as intimately related to Haeckel's scientific Monism - an approach that differs from most interpretations that tend to voice skepticism about the existence of a specific intellectual origin for Fascist ideology.

The masterwork by Gentile fills a broad gap in the understanding of the origins of a major political movement of the 20th Century: fascism. This is the first detailed and definitive study of the development and initial success of fascism as it originated in Italy right after the First World War. the author traces each major influence and gives us a complete understanding of the birth of the doctrine that changed the face of Europe and found imitators of Mussolini around the world for decades.

Fascist Ideology is a comparative study of the expansionist foreign policies of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from 1922-1945. Fascist Ideology provides a comparative investigation of fascist expansionism by focusing on the close relations between ideology and action under Mussolini and Hitler. With an overview of the ideological motivations behind fascist expansionism and their impact on fascist policies, this book explores the two main issues which have dominated the historiographical debates on the nature of fascist expansionism: whether Italy's and Germany's particular expansionist tendancies can be attributed to a set of generic fascist values, or were shaped by the long term, uniquely national ambitions and developments since unification; whether the pursuit of expansion was opportunistic or followed a grand design in each case.

'For its historical depth, analytical vigour and mobilizational potential, this book is unparalleled ... every page is an urgent invitation to resist' David Lammy MP The bestselling author of PostCapitalism offers a guide to resisting the far right The far right is on the rise across the world. From Modi's India to Bolsonaro's Brazil and Erdogan's Turkey, fascism is not a horror that we have left in the past; it is a recurring nightmare that is happening again - and we need to find a better way to fight it. In How to Stop Fascism, Paul Mason offers a radical, hopeful blueprint for resisting and defeating the new far right. The book is both a chilling portrait of contemporary fascism, and a compelling history of the fascist phenomenon: its psychological roots, political theories and genocidal logic. Fascism, Mason powerfully argues, is a symptom of capitalist failure, and it has haunted us throughout the twentieth century. History shows us the conditions that breed fascism, and how it can be successfully overcome. But it is up to us in the present to challenge it, and time is running out. From the ashes of COVID-19, we have an opportunity to create a fairer, more equal society. To do so, we must ask ourselves: what kind of world do we want to live in? And what are we going to do about it?