The Coming of the American Behemoth: The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920–1940
466 pp, $25 pbk, ISBN 978-1-58367-731-5
By Michael Joseph Roberto
Reviewed by Chris Wright
“Fascism is usually thought of as a quintessentially and almost exclusively European phenomenon, as having begun with Mussolini, culminated with Hitler, and been largely eradicated in World War II. The US, in particular, is thought to have been generally immune to it, given the absence of mass movements similar to Nazism or Italian Fascism. ¶ But there exists a different narrative, or at least there did in the 1930s, before it was buried under an avalanche of patriotic American propaganda and liberal historiography. According to this alternative understanding, the US was falling victim to fascism already in the 1920s — though a different sort of fascism than in Europe….”
Read the review at ROAR magazine
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