Audiobook6 hours
Fascism: A Very Short Introduction
Written by Kevin Passmore
Narrated by Pam Ward
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
What is fascism? Is it revolutionary? Or is it reactionary? Can it be both?
Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology that appeals to streetfighters and intellectuals alike? That is overtly macho in style, yet attracts many women? That calls for a return to tradition while maintaining a fascination with technology? And that preaches violence in the name of an ordered society?
In the new edition of this Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore brilliantly unravels the paradoxes of one of the most important phenomena in the modern world-tracing its origins in the intellectual, political, and social crises of the late nineteenth century, the rise of fascism following World War I, including fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and the fortunes of "failed" fascist movements in Eastern Europe, Spain, and the Americas. He also considers fascism in culture, the
new interest in transnational research, and the progress of the far right since 2002.
Fascism is notoriously hard to define. How do we make sense of an ideology that appeals to streetfighters and intellectuals alike? That is overtly macho in style, yet attracts many women? That calls for a return to tradition while maintaining a fascination with technology? And that preaches violence in the name of an ordered society?
In the new edition of this Very Short Introduction, Kevin Passmore brilliantly unravels the paradoxes of one of the most important phenomena in the modern world-tracing its origins in the intellectual, political, and social crises of the late nineteenth century, the rise of fascism following World War I, including fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and the fortunes of "failed" fascist movements in Eastern Europe, Spain, and the Americas. He also considers fascism in culture, the
new interest in transnational research, and the progress of the far right since 2002.
Related to Fascism
Related audiobooks
Post-Liberalism: Recovering A Shared World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAerial Warfare: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Russian Economy: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorthern Ireland: A Very Short Introduction (2nd Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Theodor Adorno: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The European Union: A Very Short Introduction, 4th edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Foucault: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Socrates: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Social and Cultural Anthropology: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Myth: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War and Religion: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSchopenhauer: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction: 2nd Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The British Constitution: A Very Short Introduction, Second Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKant: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Abolitionism: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
History & Theory For You
Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 48 Laws of Power Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prince Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Treatises of Government Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blind Ambition: The White House Years Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Original Argument: The Federalists' Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Team: How to Succeed By Thinking Like the Enemy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Human Condition: Second Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Rome Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, As You've Never Seen Him Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchist Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Trials That Changed the World Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Brief History of Neoliberalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thomas Paine's Rights of Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Fascism
Rating: 3.766666714666667 out of 5 stars
4/5
75 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A reasonable overview of a very complex and very hard to tackle problem. Exercising a good deal of common sense as well as scholarly judgement it starts off with a description of the issues in dealing with the notion of fascism, followed up by a short history of it.
The bulk of the work is made up of the description of the operation of fascist regimes and movements in the great western countries of Italy, Germany, the UK, France, with a relatively reasonable amount of attention paid to the Iberian Peninsula, Eastern Europe, the US, and even Latin America, supplemented by shorts remarks of fascism - such as it was - in Asia (although I think Japan, a special case in its own right was not mentioned). Both the scope and depth of the work - as can be seen in the English-language bibliography as well - is what one could expect of a well done "very short introduction". It is probably the strict page limit on the book combined with the depth of that rabbit hole, that forced out a deeper grounding of fascism as a phennomenon in the philosophical, artistic and social environment, as well as representative quotations from seminal thinkers and documents related.
This is also where the work suffers the most: people who don't really have a picture of the political, social and cultural, as well as economic situation in Giolittian-era (c. 1900-14) and post-war (1919-22) Italy, or the Weimar Republic's last years (1928-1933) will walk away with the picture that conservative/liberal groups accepted Mussolini and Hitler as bridges to the masses, trying to make use of them for their own interests with more (in Italy's case) or less (in Germany's) success and with the conclusion that it could have been otherwise - but without a real understanding of why not the alternatives were chosen, aside from the vague sense that they were discredited by their own performance.
The reader also does a reasonable, albeit unspectacular job in making the material interesting for the listener. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Decent content, but I don’t care for the shrill narration.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting. The author argues that attempts to define fascism precisely aren't useful, since actual fascist movements vary somewhat depending on historical situation in which they arise.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5It notoriously plays a blind eye on working class or "left wing" fascism e.g. Maoism, Stalinism, Pol Pot, Maduroism, Castrism, etc. which --curiosity enough are responsible for the greatest number of assassinations in world history.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some clarity on this murky subject; and finally an answer to a question I asked my history teacher 50 years ago.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is clearly a book aimed particularly at students, and seems to achieve its brevity by compressing its contents rather than thinning them out, so it wasn't the easiest thing to listen to as an audiobook whilst busy with other activities. But it overlaps quite heavily with other things I've been reading over the last couple of months, so I think I was able to grasp the essentials...Passmore spends quite a while dealing with the problem of definitions. The two clear historical examples, Italian Fascism and German Nazism, differed in important ways from each other, and both also changed considerably over the course of time. Other right-wing movements in Europe and elsewhere in the inter-war period often borrowed language, labels and ideas from the successful Italian and German movements, but differed considerably on things like the way they came to power (if they did), the extent to which they worked together with church, army, monarchy and mainstream conservatives, and even on whether or not their ultranationalism was based on racism (and if so, against which groups). Since World War II, the label "fascist" has been so tainted that no serious political movement (except the Italian Neo-fascists) has used it to define itself, whilst the rest of us have been happy to attach it to just about any political movement we didn't like. (Since the book was written in 2002 and only partly updated in 2014, it doesn't have much to say in detail about the current crop of far-right parties.) Academic political scientists also use the term in conflicting and confusing ways. Passmore urges us to separate this essentially historical problem of definitions from the more important question of what we find morally repugnant in the programmes of far-right/nationalist/populist parties, which seems a helpful way of looking at things. The other interesting point I took from the book is his identification of the common element between the ways Mussolini and Hitler came to power. In both cases a relatively modest electoral success was backed up by the (perceived) threat of large-scale civil disorder from the party's paramilitary organisations, which was enough to intimidate established parties into putting the extremists in power, and once in power the existing mobilisation of activists allowed the party to eliminate effective opposition very rapidly. None of the other movements of the 20s and 30s achieved this combination, and — so far — most of the modern far-right parties have shown no sign of trying to lock up their opponents and impose a single-party state. As Passmore says, this doesn't make their xenophobic rhetoric any less offensive, but it does mean that it probably isn't helpful to use their perceived similarity to Hitler and Mussolini as the core of our strategy for opposing them. Probably a good book to read if you want to get the historical background clear in your mind, but rather superficial in its treatment of 21st century movements.