António Costa Pinto
"European Fascism: The Unfinished Handbook"
Contemporary European History
Volume:21
Number:2
2012
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Abstract
Fascism continues to fascinate scholars within the social sciences, perhaps as much as communism, that other great non-democratic ‘-ism’ of the twentieth century. The topic also seems to be of continuing interest to the student and commercial book markets. In some cases bland repetition is the norm, but the pressure from commercial publishers often results in some excellent syntheses, even if based on secondary material, and that is not to mention the biography genre, which is always attentive to charismatic leaders and dictators—the more cruel the better. Moreover, the already voluminous academic literature on contemporary dictatorships often returns to the fascist and dictatorial regimes of the inter-war period. It is therefore only natural that Fascism should be incorporated in a series of handbooks published by Oxford University Press.