FASCISM TODAY: A World Survey

Current neo-fascist movements described, related to their antecedents, placed within the total right-wing picture. There is a good summary of the most important Marxist and liberal critiques of fascism. The authors address a readership prepared to distinguish among super-patriots, reactionary mystics, militarists, conservatives, et al. They take care to fill in historical details, statistics, and documentary excerpts. The chapter on the U.S., among others, suffers from scant updating since the book's 1965 Italian publication. The chapter on South Vietnam presents one of the most coolly penetrating views of the Diem regime to appear here. High information value on Japan and Latin America; emphasis on the right-wing neo-colonialist potential of African one-party rulers; a notably sophisticated discussion of Gaullism. The authors exhibit a sound grasp of common features and historical specifics, up to a point which invites constructive criticism (they are too casual with respect to ""left-wing"" fascism, its localist and populist elements, and its relation to syndicalism). The book has a permanent and heterogeneous appeal--to general readers curious about, say, the German neo-Nazis, as well as to history students in need of conceptual starch. And it is very readable.