Naturalized-Texan
03-20-2008, 12:14 PM
Fun With Fascism (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12919)
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, by Jonah Goldberg
In a certain sense, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is long-overdue. The idea that Goldberg endeavors to debunk, namely that fascism was a right-wing phenomenon, has gone unchallenged for far too long. The Soviet propaganda that labeled any socialist not beholden to Moscow "on the right" has endured longer than the Soviet Union itself.
In another sense, Goldberg's book has hit the shelves, and the bestseller list, at the perfect time. This election season illustrates just how much the ideologies that Goldberg examines have come to inform our politics.
...................
Scholars have never quite come to a consensus on how to define fascism. Goldberg's approach is to let the record speak for itself.
He begins by exploring the largely undiscussed history of the relationship between Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and American Progressivism -- a relationship that, he meticulously documents, was marked by mutual admiration and emulation -- and draws out the threads that connect them as he traces the history of what came to be called "liberalism."
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, by Jonah Goldberg
In a certain sense, Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism is long-overdue. The idea that Goldberg endeavors to debunk, namely that fascism was a right-wing phenomenon, has gone unchallenged for far too long. The Soviet propaganda that labeled any socialist not beholden to Moscow "on the right" has endured longer than the Soviet Union itself.
In another sense, Goldberg's book has hit the shelves, and the bestseller list, at the perfect time. This election season illustrates just how much the ideologies that Goldberg examines have come to inform our politics.
...................
Scholars have never quite come to a consensus on how to define fascism. Goldberg's approach is to let the record speak for itself.
He begins by exploring the largely undiscussed history of the relationship between Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and American Progressivism -- a relationship that, he meticulously documents, was marked by mutual admiration and emulation -- and draws out the threads that connect them as he traces the history of what came to be called "liberalism."