Publisher's Synopsis
Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Engelbert Dollfuss, Francisco Franco, the military dictators of Japan, Ante Pavelic, Ion Antonescu, António Salazar and others were considered fascists. Were they all proponents of the same fascism - or has the term degenerated into a sometimes misused label? Fascist rule in Italy established a political model that defined Europe through 1945 and beyond. But was fascism the same as fascism? The absolute totalitarianism of National Socialism differed from the authoritarian Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship. If, on the one hand, the military expansionist policies of the "Axis powers" Germany, Italy and Japan were a central feature of fascism, can Dollfuss and Franco then be considered fascists? On the other hand, if the suppression of universal rights is at the heart of fascism, what distinguishes it from other repressive systems such as the dictatorships of Stalin and Mao? And what does it mean when Trump and Putin are suspected of being fascists in the 21st century? Anton Pelinka deconstructs the term using historical examples and explores the question of whether there is a general tendency to fascism that can repeatedly trigger political tremors and global catastrophes.
