Thursday, May 30, 2024

Resources for reading about fascism

Thomas Zimmer, in Fascism in America? (Part 1), Democracy Americana, May 22, 2024, suggests the essay collection Did It Happen Here? Perspectives of Fascism and America, ed. Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins. More resources:

I suggest starting with an episode of the always excellent Know Your Enemy podcast from shortly after January 6 which, to this day, is probably the most precise, most accessible introduction to the fascism debate and the underlying fascism scholarship. John Ganz has written a whole series of thoughtful, nuanced, historically precise reflections on the fascism question for his Unpopular Front newsletter. Both Geoff Eley and Anna Duensing have weighed in with clarifying pieces from a more strictly academic perspective. Finally, from the latest historical scholarship on the American Right that is devoted to exploring the relationship between mainstream conservatism and rightwing extremism, I will mention recent book publications by David Walsh (Taking America Back), John Huntington (Far-Right Vanguard), and Edward Miller (A Conspiratorial Life); the explorations of how rightwing extremism took over the Republican Party in Oregon that Seth Cotlar provides in his Rightlandia newsletter; and, finally, an essay by Rick Perlstein in the New York Times, published shortly after Trump first entered the White House, that in many ways signaled the beginning of a broader reconceptualization of conservatism’s history. All of them represent a growing consensus among scholars that the “fascism” concept can indeed be helpful in making sense of the anti-democratic radicalization that characterizes today’s Right.

No comments:

Post a Comment

In case you missed it

Have you seen inside the book 'To Climates Unknown'?

The alternate history novel To Climates Unknown by Arturo Serrano was released on November 25, the 400th anniversary of the mythical First ...