Fascism

Fascism is the most novel term in the vocabulary of twentieth-century political thought. It is also the most controversial and elusive. This new volume in the Modern Ideologies Series attempts for the first time to explain why, after five decades of research and reflection, there is still so much confusion and disagreement about the nature of fascism, and to provide a more plausible account of its origins and significance.

Fascism is here placed in the context of the emergence in Europe since the end of the eighteenth century of a new, activist style of politics. Of this it is only one manifestation, but its particular significance lies in the dramatic way in which it has made explicit the extreme implications of the activist style which other, liberal and socialist, versions have endeavoured to conceal. This is not to deny. however, the existence of ideas which may properly be considered as integral to the fascist Weltanschauung-national aggrandizement, the concept of corporatism, the idea of permanent revolution, the cult of despotic leadership, and an ideal of self-sufficiency leading inevitably to a programme of world conquest.

In his final chapter Noël O'Sullivan looks at the relationship of contemporary terrorism to the fascist phenomenon, and considers the conflicting interpretations of the relevance of fascism for the future.