The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton

This is sure to take its place among classics in the field by Stanley Payne and Roger Griffith. Although Paxton doesn't address present or future forms of fascism, his list of its ''mobilizing passions'' will sound to some readers frighteningly similar to aspects of contemporary America.

from Washington and Lee University in 1954. After attending secondary school in New England, he received a B.A. In addition, Paxton examines such important topics as images of fascism and what we might call ''the future of fascism'' (in a quick aside on a current controversy, Paxton notes that Islamic fundamentalism is not fascist). Robert Owen Paxton is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. This is a study of both the intellectual origins of fascism and how it played out in the streets of Berlin, Rome, Paris and other locales. How can we try to comprehend its allure and its horror Is it a philosophy, a movement, an aesthetic experience What makes states and nations become fascist Acclaimed historian Robert O. This study has several virtues (and few defects): the writing is free of some of the theoretical jargon that threatens our understanding of a defining political movement of the 20th century. Fascism was the major political invention of the twentieth century and the source of much of its pain. Rather than begin with a definition of fascism, Paxton prefers to give concrete examples of it in action in various countries, from Italy and Germany to France, Holland and Eastern Europe in particular, he examines its ''mobilizing passions,'' such as a sense of overwhelming crisis and dread of a native group's decline. Paxton writes in his introduction that fascism was ''the most self-consciously visual of all political forms,'' yet many of those indelible images (Mussolini haranguing a crowd from a balcony the perfect choreography of totalitarianism in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will) can ''induce facile errors'' about the omnipotent leader or the supposed unanimity of the crowd. Paxton breaks down Fascism into a few components Fascism and its intellectual roots, Fascism in ascendance, and Fascism in power. Paxton, the author of seminal works on Vichy France, now sums up a lifelong reflection on fascism's myriad forms. Paxton, is an interesting examination of the political concept of Fascism from both an intellectual and practical perspective.

The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton