Fascism in America: Past and Present

by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld (editor), Janet Ward (Editor)

Has fascism arrived in America? In this pioneering book, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward have gathered experts to survey the history of fascism in the United States. Although the US established a staunch anti-fascist reputation by defeating the Axis powers in World War II, the unsettling truth is that fascist ideas have long been present within American society. Since the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, scholars have debated whether Trumpism should be seen as an outgrowth of American conservatism or of a darker – and potentially fascist – tradition. Fascism in America contributes to this debate by examining the activities of interwar right-wing groups like the Silver Shirts, the KKK, and the America First movement, as well as the post-war rise of Black antifascism and white vigilantism, the representation of American Nazis in popular culture, and policy options for combating right-wing extremism.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction

454 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 14, 2023

About the author

Gavriel David Rosenfeld is President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor of History at Fairfield University. His areas of academic specialization include the history of Nazi Germany, memory studies, and counterfactual history. He is an editor of The Journal of Holocaust Research and edits the blog, The Counterfactual History Review, which features news, analysis, and commentary from the world of counterfactual and alternate history.

Reviews

[Alex Nagler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosenfeld and Ward's "Fascism in America" is a necessary collection of essays detailing the history of fascist movements in the United States, changes in the past decade, and where we can go from here. From an academic history of the concept of America First to a history of black antifascism, the authors involved weave a cogent narrative while also finally providing a handful of responses to things that be used to counter far-right growth through things being done elsewhere.

My thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Cambridge U Press. A much needed scholarly work on fascism in America, from the '30's to today. A collection of essays by various experts, I read many of the pieces, mostly the historical essays. Fantastic Notes and Bibliography! I read alongside Maddow's "Prequel", and they fit well together (Maddow's is less scholarly).

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascism has been back in the news for the past few years for political reasons. It’s always good to both go back to the sources and reconsider the presence and role of fascism in America since the 1920s.

Such is the goal of Fascism in America: Past and Present (galley received as part of an early review program), a collection of essays on this theme.

The editors first weigh in on whether DJT was/is fascist. They do well at exploring the historical complications with any kind of easy parallelism, recognizing fascism in Europe came at a particular time under particular circumstances, but also shows how DJT manifests authoritarian and fascistic tendencies.

Many essays reassess the role and presence of fascism in America in the historical era. For all sorts of propagandistic reasons it proved convenient to tell a narrative in which America was always antifascist. In truth there were many fascist sympathizing organizations in America, some of which were directly sponsored by the Nazis. The story of a Nazi ghostwriter used by some politicians in the 1930s is told. These essays demonstrate how a sizable minority of Americans found fascism sufficiently alluring.

Two Black contributors assess antifascism in the Civil Rights Movement and whether and how they associated their opponents with fascism. One essay explored the rise of counterfactual narratives in which the Nazis or fascists prove successful and take over power and what their presence and reception today says about the current environment. Fascism in far right movements today is also considered and what can be done about their influence.

This is a timely collection of essays which do well to remind us how some views which we would like to think have no heritage in our nation…do.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascism in America: Past and Present, edited by Gavriel D Rosenfeld and Janet Ward, is a collection of essays that together work toward both finding a working definition (or understanding) of fascism and connecting our current state of instability with examples of fascist thoughts and/or sympathies from the country's past.

These are academic essays, plenty of notes and explication, but each writer does a good job of making their essays accessible to any reader who wants to understand. I'm going to spend less time here trying to paraphrase their arguments, I will just say that the similarities are plenty between what is happening in the US right wing and previous examples of what is widely regarded as moments of fascist, or fascist-leaning, movements. It is well worth your time to read the details to understand both the similarities and differences.

As an example of how the book can generate thought in a reader, I will instead offer a couple of my thoughts. This is less about restating what the book says and more about letting you know that this book doesn't just inform but also gets a reader to thinking. No doubt what crossed my mind will be different from what crosses yours, which is great, offers more ideas for discussion and debate.

I'll say upfront, both from what I have been seeing in the country and from the books I've read on the topic over the past few years, I strongly support the use of a fascist frame for explaining what is happening. But that requires some qualifications, and the idea of a definition of fascism is one of them. I came away, as I have with a couple other books, with thinking of defining fascism in much the same way I think of defining existentialism. A professor once, I think accurately, explained that there isn't really a hard and fast definition of existentialism. Too specific and very few thinkers would be considered such, even self-proclaimed existentialists. Too loose a definition and you run the risk of diluting it to the point that anyone who ever thought about life and death suddenly become existentialists. What it is is a constellation of ideas along with some key relationships between many of them. Every idea isn't necessary, every relationship isn't necessary. Which is why one of the most popular short introductory texts include Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky. This leads to what I think is important in any discussion when we start using fascism as a descriptor: define your term. I don't have to agree with your working definition of fascism, but if I can understand how you're using it we can debate ideas rather than definitions. Is the main point whether a movement or a person is fascist? Or is the main point that some destructive ideas are gaining traction and we need to know how to counter them.

I also came away with a fresh appreciation of the need to know our history better so we can understand our present better. Not simply the old adage about history repeating itself but the use of terms to communicate that we may miss but convey a world of meaning to those "in the know." The history of many fascist-leaning groups in this country have largely been reduced to footnotes in most history courses. But for those who still subscribe to those ideas, they know that history, they know what terms were used and they revive those terms as a way to essentially talk around other people while still sending messages of support and agreement to likeminded people. We need to know all of our history, not just what feeds our notions about who we are. Which is why the current trend to suppress history in so many locations is so dangerous. Nicholson was wrong, we can handle the truth, we just need to know the whole truth.

I would highly recommend this to readers who want to know where we have been, how we got to where we are, and where we might end up going. I think any reader who truly wants to know more and not simply advance an agenda can gain a lot here, even if you happen to lean toward some of this thought. This will give you more to consider than just what you hear from those who think strictly as you do.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tradition of fascism and right-wing extremism has been an integragal and shameful part in American history for at leat 200 years. This book ,splendidly researched, and edited by two authors who are experts on this field, shows how ,when and who was part of it. Starting from the mid 1850 to these very days, when tens of millions of Americans hope that the infamous Donald Trump will be re-elected as President of the USA, the book is a collection of twelve essays and one epilogue, describing the nativist, anti-Semitic and anti-Black attitudes and policies which were adopted by many individuals and oragnizations alike. You will find here the KKK,the nativist movements, the American Nazi Bund, the Silver Legion and many other lunatic groups who came on stage to provoke and expel minorities: those who were in favour of the eugenic and racist policies-which had taught Hitler how to implement these two elememts in his atrocious crimes perpetrated by his henchmen during WW2 and many other things that will make your stomach turn upside down.
America has changed much in the lst 60 years and is on its way of becoming a fascist state.All of this in spite of the Statue of Liberty which many immigrants encounter when coming to this country. Suffice it to take a look at the photo of the cover to see how one picture is worth 10000 words.
This is a brilliant book and an essential and indispensable volume showing the dangers of such mad men like Trump (whose father was a member of the KKK) and his alikes.

[Arjan Walia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, easy-to-read (but unfortunately already slightly dated) exploration of fascism in the US, exploring its roots in other forms of historical far-right violence (e.g., Jim Crow vigilantism), the support fascism enjoyed from many Americans in the interwar period, and the way other Americans then and now have interpreted that history. Especially insightful were chapter 3 by Matthew Specter and Varsha Venkatasubramian on the history of the phrase "America First" and chapter 8 by Anna Duensing on how Black Americans conceptualized fascism as it was unfurling in Europe and its haunting parallels to the US's own system of violent, racialized apartheid. Ultimately, this book has both made me more convinced that we are witnessing a revival of fascism in the 21st century and less sure if that term is sufficiently descriptive of the present moment's politics. Perhaps, as Geoff Eley suggests in chapter 1, it is more instructive to think of fascism as a framework characterized by vigilante violence, ultra-nationalism, and us-versus-them mentalities that have resulted from crises of liberalism in their own unique historical moments--a damning indictment, no doubt, of our dysfunctional democracy in the past several decades. Reading this as the second Trump administration is underway makes this book's diagnoses all the more sobering.

[Timothy Hoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding collection of essays, surveying the rise of fascist groups in a vast range of American geography, prompted by a mixed bag of causes, including anger at Native Americans, fear of communists, rage at Catholics, hatred of Jews, and resentment of elites. My own most memorable encounter with fascists was finding myself at a beer hall in New Orleans sometime in the 1960s where most everyone there was full of lager, Nazi songs and a longing for Deutschland ruled by Hitler. I am sure I happened upon a meeting of the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund, the German American Bund, that had somehow resurfaced after WWII.