DID IT HAPPEN HERE?

A timely collection of informed voices on fascism.

Once upon a time, a flamboyant political novice burst onto the scene. Extolling patriotism and so-called traditional values, he denounced liberalism. Though few establishment figures took him seriously, suddenly, he was the nation’s leader, and scholars still debate how it happened. That was Benito Mussolini. Many Americans forget that he was a no-nonsense autocrat who sought to make Italy great again. Perhaps his greatest legacy is his Fascist party’s name, embodied by a host of current strongmen leaders, including, of course, Donald Trump. In this collection, scholars and journalists offer highly opinionated essays, curated by Steinmetz-Jenkins, a professor of history and social theory at Wesleyan. The editor begins with an excerpt from Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel, It Can’t Happen Here, which satirizes proto-fascist movements in 1930s America. Then he moves on to Reinhold Niebuhr, followed by Leon Trotsky’s 1940 Marxian treatise. Among the more turgid contributions, his analyses of Nazi appeal and capitalist weakness have not been borne out, but he hits the mark in his argument that the absence of a labor party makes revolution unlikely. Novelist Umberto Eco is the most entertaining. In 1942, the young author won a national award for an essay on Mussolini. He explains that, as the first right-wing dictatorship to take over a European country, fascism established the folklore, rhetoric, brutality, and even the fashion. Mussolini himself had no true philosophy (like Trump), but Eco’s wry description of the features of typical “Ur-Fascism” may lead some readers to skip the remaining pieces, which mix academic analysis and polemic and conclude that Trump may be a fascist (or not) and that his followers accept some of its features. Other contributors include Samuel Moyn, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Pankaj Mishra.

Mostly insightful essays that often preach to the choir.