THE FASCISTS IN BRITAIN

by Colin Dross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 1963

It first glance the metamorphoses of Sir Oswald Mosley might seem an exciting exercise in the eccentricities of political zoology, 20th century style. For here's aronet who buddy-buddied so far to the Left even the Webbs and Laski gave him the nod and the Labour Premiership was almost in the bag; then in the '30's he swung volte face, extolled the ""modern movements"" on the continent, namely the Hitler and Mussolini regimes, and subsequently unfurled around East End the blackshirted banner of the BUF. But as Englishman Colin Cross pieces up the puzzle- though heavily manicured, punctilious and impersonal, though primped with relevant political rallies, press brouhahas and mass threst- the Mosley portrailt no matter how you look at it eventually just shrieks and tiffens into cardboard paranoia. Cross presents the facts, squares the anecdotes and prinkless the names; the names titillate, of course, if for no other reason than that they chow how many famous figures in so many high places were involved, either lightly or eeply, with the fuhrerprinzip. By the late 30s, however, what with members like William oyce and Arnold Leese, the BUF grew as rattled and rancid as an Old Folks cotillion. Finally, Hitler invaded the Lowlands, Mosley was incarcerated, and nobody put up much uss one way or the other. The book's real color is the highbrow thriller atmosphere of its times, like the early Hitchcock or the early Auden or Greene. And read in that light at has its points and pleasures. Otherwise.....

Pub Date: Oct. 16, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION