Fascism

"For historians, Fascism offers clear and provocative insights and arguments, and the very detailed notes are especially helpful.... Recommended."â• Choice

What does it mean to label someone a fascist? Today, it is equated with denouncing him or her as a Nazi. But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term's meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word's polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles.

Like "conservatism," "liberalism," and other words whose meanings have changed with time, "fascism" has been used arbitrarily over the years and now stands for a host of iniquities that progressives, multiculturalists, and libertarians oppose, even if they offer no single, coherent account of the historic evil they condemn. Certain factors have contributed to the term's imprecise usage, Gottfried writes, including the equation of all fascisms with Nazism and Hitler, as well as the rise of a post-Marxist left that expresses predominantly cultural opposition to bourgeois society and its Christian and/or national components.

Those who stand in the way of social change are dismissed as "fascist," he contends, an epithet that is no longer associated with state corporatism and other features of fascism that were once essential but are now widely ignored. Gottfried outlines the specific historical meaning of the term and argues that it should not be used indiscriminately to describe those who hold unpopular opinions.

His important study will appeal to political scientists, intellectual historians, and general readers interested in politics and history.

Paul E. Gottfried is the retired Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College and a Guggenheim recipient. He is the author of numerous books, including The Search for Historical Meaning and, most recently, Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America.

In these studies, Gottfried notes how, partly because of how varied fascist administrations were, the elements which can be described as characteristic of fascism are actually very few.

Gottfried's Fascism: The Career of a Concept is so valuable as a provocation, for it was written to correct the sloppy use of the epithet 'fascist' to condemn whatever politician or movement one finds distasteful.

Books warning of 'the new fascism' have become a cottage industry among academics. But at least one author, Dr. Paul E. Gottfried, professor emeritus of humanities at Elizabethtown College and editor of Chronicles magazine, takes a more historically informed view.

For historians, [Fascism] offers clear and provocative insights and arguments, and the very detailed notes are especially helpful.... Recommended.

Gottfried's study is particular, nuanced, and multifaceted... a model for the type of work that can earn the right a hearing from more attentive audiences.

Paul Gottfried's is far and away the best book on fascism I've read in many years.

Robert Weissberg, emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign:

Fascism is a book of remarkable scholarship and sensitivity regarding some exceedingly complex ideas. Gottfried's navigation of the ins and outs of the interwar ideological quarrels in Italy and France is especially masterful.

Jeff Taylor, Dordt College:

Gottfried brings vast erudition and interpretive nuance to the subject of fascism. This book is a significant contribution to the fields of political thought and European history.

Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute:

Fascism is a meticulously researched primer on the true history of one of the world's worst ideologies. Upon finishing the book, readers will emerge with a firmer understanding of history, philosophy, and the ways in which words shape culture and reality.