Robert O. Paxton

One of the best books on fascism I've read. It's general enough to be an introduction, but goes beyond the common surface tropes and actually tries to analyse the essence of the disparate fascisms that briefly existed. The book takes pains to recognize the overuse of the word as an ideological sledgehammer and tries to tease out more than the intentionalist view that makes a monolith of what was really a not very coherent group of ideological extremists. After an overview of the concept of fascism, the book gives overviews of the main lines of fascism - Italy and Germany, but also the lesser buds that died on the vine, and a crop of those that have been called fascist but share very little in common with the rest.
Despite the deeper analysis the common threads of thought do appear throughout.… (mehr)

This book by Robert O. Paxton is excellent, readable and important. I learned many things when I read the book: the recent invention of fascism. He distinguishes between liberalism, etc., and fascism. The key difference is that liberalism targets intellectuals, while fascism targets the masses. This difference is critical and helps to explain the mass appeal of fascism and its tools of propaganda.

Robert Paxton helped us glean lessons from the actions - not speeches - of fascism. Unlike other writers who only studied Germany and Italy, he analyzed other countries where fascism didn't do well.

In the end, he left us with an excellent definition of fascism. This book is marvellous.… (mehr)