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The problem with "fascism" is that practically from the beginning it has been used loosely as a term of disparagement. The most careful attempt to define what i
by wrp 4y ago
The problem with "fascism" is that practically from the beginning it has been used loosely as a term of disparagement. The most careful attempt to define what is and isn't fascism, while shunning polemics, is I think Stanley G. Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980). He has some recent articles on the overuse of "fascism" in political discourse. (https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/antifascism-without-fascism https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/antifasci..., https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/01/antifascists-after-fascism https://www.firstthings.com/article/2022/01/antifascists-aft...)
- mamonster 4y agoThe other book, which is somewhat more controversial than Payne, is Nolte's Three Faces of Fascism. It's kind of controversial because 1) Phenomenology is really out of style as a way of doing history 2) It analyses fascist movements within their own language/stated goals. If you identify Nazis more closely with Italian Fascists than with Soviet Communism/Stalinism then this is the book that kind of mainstreamed that view.