The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism - Hardcover

Mosse, George L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865274320 ISBN 13: 9780865274327

Publisher: Howard Fertig Pub, 1999

Synopsis

Synthesizing historian Mosse's (1918-99) life-long efforts to understand the nature of fascism, contains ten essays originally published between 1961 and 1996. He approaches the movement as a cultural phenomenon, and investigates how it and its adherents saw it and themselves. Among his subjects are fascist aesthetics, the French Revolution, fascism and the Intellectuals, the occult origins of National Socialism, and homosexuality and French fascism. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

A brief yet invaluable reassessment, from one of our most insightful and profound thinkers on the nature of fascism. Co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary History and author of nearly two dozen books (e.g., Fallen Soldiers: Replacing the Memory of the World Wars, 1990), Mosse has helped to shape our contemporary understanding of fascismand, consequently, of 20th-century history. Hes trained dozens of practicing historians, leaving the field indelibly altered. The essays collected here have all appeared previously in academic journals and scholarly volumes. In them Mosse examines facets of fascism. (Following the usual convention, ``fascism'' refers to the generic phenomenon, while ``Fascism'' alludes to the Italian variant.) His topics include fascist aesthetics, theater, and the avant-garde; fascism and the French Revolution; the nexus between fascism, nationalism, and racism; fascism and the role of intellectuals; fascism (or in this case, specifically National Socialism) and the occult; and fascism and homosexuality. The author opens his introduction by acknowledging the changing interpretations of fascism over the last five decades. His own method might be described as cultural analysisor, to borrow a term from Clifford Geertz and cultural anthropology, ``thick description.'' To be sure, class analysis, long favored by many Marxist and leftist historians, fails to fully capture fascisms essence. And yet even a cultural approach poses certain inherent difficulties. For, as Mosse and others h ave pointed out, a paradox lies at the heart of ``fascist studies'': Intellectuals have chosen to use rational analysis to study and explain a movement thats irrational by its very natureas well as hostile to the Wests humanistic tradition. Hardly an intr oductory work for the novice, but instead a fundamental summation of a lifetime. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

His arguments are not always easy to grasp, but they come from long consideration of a vexing phenomenon, which is given a full and many-sided explication in these pages. -- The New York Times, Richard Bernstein

Edition details

• Publisher: Howard Fertig Pub
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0865274320
• ISBN 13: 9780865274327
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 230