Fascism: Comparison and Definition

By Stanley G. Payne

Book Overview

"An impressive review of reputed fascist movements, at once setting them apart from other authoritarian nationalist organizations and bringing them together within a qualified generic category.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0299080609
• ISBN13: 9780299080600
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A comprehensive and objective theoretical analysis

The author purports "not to provide another description of fascism but to wrestle with some basic problems of definition and comparison"; that abstract task does, however, involve a good deal of historical exposition. Fascism is defined within the historical context of the Italian Fascist and German National Socialist parties, their historical antecedents and contemporary parallels, and the Mussolini and Hitler regimes. The existence of present-day fascism, in the strict and literal sense, is considered at most an anachronism. The book represents a significant academic acheivement, analysing a vast amount of research material and thoughtfully synthesizing an objective viewpoint. Although "forces that promoted a world historical disaster are hard to view with scientific detachment", the author succeeds in "disengag[ing] this analysis as much as possible from political emotions and overt moralizing." The work does much to clarify and de! fine what is "probably the vaguest of contemporary political terms", rejecting overly simplistic and/or ideologically biased conceptions of fascism.