The Book Depository The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton
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Description: The Anatomy of Fascism : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780141014326 : 0141014326 : 01 Mar 2005 : Fascism was the major political invention of the twentieth century and the source of much of its pain. 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?. The Book Depository The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
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Product ID: 9780141014326
MPN: 0141014326
GTIN: 9780141014326
Author: Germinal
Rating: 5
Review: Fascism is the most misunderstood and abused political term around. It's almost as if no two people have the same understanding. This confusion, some of it willfully induced in my opinion, has, in turn, led to further multiple confusions to the extent that, today, we have commentators who seriously suggest that people like Fini, Griffin, Le Pen and Haidar do not stand in a fascist political tradition but that Islamists, to pick one of the more obvious examples, do stand in the fascist tradition. How did we get into this pickle and, more importantly, how do we get out of it? Robert Paxton's 'Anatomy of Fascism' goes a long way to helping guide us out of the fog. Firstly, Paxton deals with recent writers on fascism such as Sternhell, Payne, de Felice and Roger Griffin to understand why they are not quite adequate in their analysis. Paxton also directs his fire on the more commonly understood 'totalitarian' analysis of the Cold War era which sought to equate fascism and communism. Paxton rejects the way some historians have offered separate definitions of fascism and Nazism, arguing that this leads to the study of fascism in isolation from other factors. Analyses which reduce fascism to a tool of a particular interest group, meanwhile, ignore the fact that the movement won independent popular backing. Instead Paxton proposes to examine the development of fascism through five stages: the creation of a movement; its rooting in the political system; the seizure of power; the exercise of power; its fate in the long term (radicalisation or entropy). Paxton is quite clear that fascist movements are autonomous movements that come to power with the aid of the existing liberal/conservative elite at time of social, economic and political crisis and where the democratic institutions of the state seem unable to resolve such a crisis. I do have one quibble with Paxton. He fails to adequately address the analyses of fascism related to social class. He does not mention, and perhaps is unaware of, the analyses of the rise of fascism offered in the writings of Leon Trotsky which remain the sharpest analysis from the era of the height of fascism. But that's a small quibble compared to the plusses that Paxton offers. Paxton is astute enough to realise that the rise of fascism today may not necessarily come from the wannabes of the likes of the BNP but might also arise from other forces in much the same 'organic' fashion that the original Italian fascism did. One can't help thinking here of the former left/liberal members of the commentariat who are rushing politically Rightwards. He also gives short shrift to the politically illiterate, yet fashionable, notion of Islamo-fascism. As Paxton finishes: `Armed by historical knowledge, we may be able to distinguish today's ugly but isolated imitations, with their shaved heads and swastika tattoos, from authentic functional equivalents in the form of a mature fascist-conservative alliance. Forewarned, we may be able to detect the real thing when it comes along'.
Author: Dr Peter A. McCue
Rating: 3
Review: Robert Paxton is an emeritus (retired) social sciences professor of Columbia University. He contends that some books on fascism have given disproportionate weight to the words of fascists. His thoughtful, but not always entirely clear, analysis of the subject focuses more closely on the actions of fascists, and also pays close attention to their allies and accomplices. Indeed, he contends that fascism in action looks less like a fixed essence than a network of relationships (p. 207). Writers and commentators often differ in how they use the words ‘fascist’ and ‘fascism’. For some, any sort of authoritarian, right-wing regime (such as the one headed by the Spanish dictator Franco after his country’s civil war) could be described as ‘fascist’. For others, the term has somewhat different meanings. However, probably all historians, social scientists and informed commentators would agree that the regimes of Mussolini, in Italy, and Hitler, in Germany, could be described as fascist. But words have the meanings we give them, and when we’re referring to abstract concepts rather than physical things, there will always be scope for ambiguity and disagreement. For Paxton (p. 218), fascism is characterized by: - An obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood. - Compensatory cults of ‘unity’, ‘energy’ and ‘purity’. - A mass-based party of militant nationalists working in collaboration with traditional elites. - An abandonment of democratic freedom. - Violent action (directed at both ‘internal cleansing’ and external expansion). The third of these components means that when fascists attain power, any leftist, anti-capitalist sentiments that they previously articulated will probably see little or no expression. For example, although the word ‘Socialist’ appeared in the full name of the German Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party), Hitler’s regime didn’t attempt to nationalize the country’s private industry, and left-wing elements in the party were suppressed. Paxton’s text contains a sprinkling of unusual expressions that aren’t always clearly explained. And in places, he uses foreign expressions, without providing translations, thereby giving his text a whiff of literary pretentiousness. For instance, on p. 205, he refers to “European fin de siècle culture”, for which he could have simply referred to “European end-of-century culture”. The last two paragraphs on p. 85 seem to contradict each other; and in at least one or two other places, I found the meaning of his text unclear. The book contains a mass of endnotes, some of which seem unnecessary. For example, on p. 209, there’s a superscript number (20) referring to an endnote that might have been better included (in brackets) in the main text, since it simply says: “See the discussion in chapter 3, pp. 68-73”.
