Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

• #1 in Best Politics Books

372 Reviews

Sort by: Most Helpful ▲ Date Rating

And boy, does Jonah Goldberg have himself some enemies.

It was inevitable that the review section for Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" would degenerate into the Mother of all Flame Wars. The advance dislike for this book simmered for months, and now the floodgates for negative reviews are open. I'd advise all potential readers of this book to bear in mind how few of the negative reviews appear to reflect a reading of the book.

For those willing to give Goldberg the chance, he offers the following thesis: that the label fascist has its roots in the governing philosophies of Italy's National Fascist Party and Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party. He argues that there has been a false duality created between the Soviet Socialists of the USSR and the socialists united under the fascists in Italy and Germany. He argues that the totalitarian impulse, the philosophy of state control of decisions taking priority over individual freedoms, is the core uniting principle behind these movements, and he argues that the ongoing home of such statism is in what has come to be known as the "liberal" politics of the modern progressive movement. As you can imagine, that doesn't sit very well with the targets of his argument (hence the rain of 1-star reviews).

I'd encourage open minded readers of all backgrounds to read Goldberg's book and address his arguments. I find his conversational and somewhat informal style to be witty and readable. That said, longtime Goldberg fans should know that this is not a book-length "G-File" (the hip and irreverent column he wrote for National Review Online). This is a serious scholarly work, and it deserves to be read and judged as such. Goldberg is attempting to right a historical injustice. This book is not attempting, as many seem to think, to say that all liberals are closet Nazis, but rather that, contrary to popular misconception, it is not conservatism, but liberalism, that traces its roots to the fascists. In some ways it is a book-length extension of the question conservatives sometimes pose to liberals: "If you leave out the parts about killing all the Jews and invading Poland, what specifically about the Nazi political platform do you disagree with?" (That platform is handily provided in the appendix.) After Goldberg's book, this question is much harder to simply shrug off.

Still, one doesn't need nearly 600 citations just to allow conservatives to say "I'm rubber, you're glue" the next time they are called a fascist. Goldberg argues that our focus on the atrocities committed by fascists in Germany obscures the fact that the fascist drive is, to a degree, universal in modern politics. The heritage and institutions of America lead it to manifest itself in a different form here. Whether it is the smothering embrace of the "It Takes a Village" mommy state or, to a lesser degree, the big-government, "compassionate conservatism" of Bush, fascism in the U.S. is well-intention, "smiley face" fascism, but it still looks first to the state, last to the individual.

In the end, that's what I liked best about this book. Yes, it's great to have a 5-pound rebuttal to the next person who tries to use "fascist" as an epithet to end criticism of a liberal program. However, what comes through in the end is not so much Goldberg's hatred of fascism, but his love of liberty. Fascism in all its forms is the enemy of liberty, and recognizing it for what it is will always be a prerequisite for stopping it. Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" clears away decades of obfuscation to allow that recognition in both the past and present day politics. Those who continue to fight for individual freedom will enjoy and appreciate this book.

This well researched book reveals what many historians have known for decades - and not spoken about. Namely, the direct connection between European Fascism and the political philosophy of the American Left. What this book reveals is that Communism, Fascism, Socialism and the American Left are all versions of the same general political philosophy and that they have for decades stood in direct opposition to the founding principals of our nation: individual liberty, free enterprise and limited government power.

While Goldberg's political activism is an important factor in his approach to many subjects, the proposition that organizes this book need not be read as a purely partisan project. He is challenging the conventional mapping of political systems on a geometrical model, that is, left vs right, with all the party allegiances and historical props that those catchphrases tend to suggest. So many casual readers will dismiss his thesis by reducing it to a straw man that would be unfair to him and harmful to themselves.

The dichotomy of ideas organizing his analysis entails a battle between the virtues of liberal democracy and the ideals driving various collectivist political agendas. He's not mixing militarist fascism with class-struggle communism, or identifying either of those totalitarian schemes with the progressivist politics which values state solutions to human problems. These are cousins in the collectivist family, with some similar ideas but not all ideological roots in common.

He is making a specific ideological connection between them, in their opposition to the values of classical liberalism (such as the right to private property, the right to a free market, and the responsible freedom of individual citizens in meaningful, local associations, as de Tocqueville famously observed in America.)

The title "Liberal Fascism" is borrowed from H.G. Wells, which is an interesting source, because his collectivist vision is a progressivist, non-military, trans-national instance of the kind of political thinking on which Goldberg puts his finger. It's utopian in its goal, but Wells is driven by a fear of war between nation states, and by the need to equip people to survive; he understands the principle of T.H. Huxley's ethical evolution as turning around Darwin's survival of the fittest. Government can provide help--like 'universal education'--but it can't avoid the need for competition, which helps a person or species evolve.

Contrast the too-peaceful Eloi and the too-savage Morlocks in the failed future in the 'Time Machine.' While one relies on lawfully peaceful existence without any struggle or pain or spirit (even if such 'communal' peace requires sacrificial victims), the other group has locked itself into the militarist pursuit of death (even if it dehumanizes them).

Though he favors the classical liberalism of the American experiment instead, Goldberg probably likes Wells' positive vision better than he does a utopian communism or militant fascism, even though it's still collectivist.

Jonah Goldberg's first full length literary effort "Liberal Fascism" carefully examines the ways in which the history of fascism diverges from the commonly held myths on the subject. While it doesn't read like a "homework assignment", neither is it typical of his other work where he uses his acerbic wit to delight his fans on the right and enrage his opponents on the left. This is no Ann Coulter book; it's not designed to get anyone's goat. It's a serious work that clearly demonstrates a continuous line of logic from Italian Fascism, and German "National Socialism", straight to the American Left of today.

He so effectively challenges such a fundamental piece of liberal dogma, that his critics on the left will no doubt accuse him of heresy. But such a substantive work is not going to be dismissed so easily. In the end they will have no choice but to actually read the book and attempt to critique it on its own terms. I don't envy them their task. It's such a well documented work that's going to take a true philosophical contortionist to refute it without many obvious and undermining logical contradictions.

By treating the subject seriously he's raising the dialog between left and right, even if some would prefer it otherwise. And years from now this book will be viewed as a cornerstone moment in the political conversation between the left and right. By adjusting the placement of the current political labels, he's revealed a little more of the truth rather than obscuring it, as his more disingenuous critics will certainly claim.

It's a great effort and well worth the read by both his fans and detractors.

In another example of polemic which might serve as an example of a "how to" guide, columnist Jonah Goldberg adds another salvo in the culture wars with "Liberal Fascism." To his credit, Goldberg can write and maintains a far more serious veneer than the likes of his fellow culture warriors like Shawn Hannity and Bill O'Rilley. Yet despite his often keen sense of humor, Goldberg fails to recognize that the joke is on him, as his whole book looks bizarrely like those he wishes to attack.

In his initial thesis, that many on the left hurl the term fascist with such ease and frequency as to render it meaningless - though he offers little evidence of the second half of his point that those on the left use it to "silence" those on the right, the only political effect the term having had on politics in the last 20 years its jujitsu like use by Senator Al D'Amato to defeat Bob Abrams in NY's '92 Senate race - and then just as quickly uses the word in ways that render it equally fascist. Indeed, Goldberg's logic is often so flawed as to wonder how his editors read his manuscript without giggling.

Take Goldberg's efforts to rebrand the European Fascist states as "liberal." Ignoring the occasional mistakes of facts committed - such as his claim that the Nazi's supported abortion, a strange point since the idea of "choice" was anathema in the Nazi State, abortion being a severely punished crime in most cases - but let us look at the places where he gets his facts correct. Goldberg points out that Nazi Germany offered free healthcare and generous old age pensions, and was therefore liberal, and therefore all liberals are Fascists. Take a moment to consider this - under Goldberg's definition pretty much every state in Western Europe, even those whose leaders he might approve, are thus Fascists (a shock to Lady Thatcher to be sure). Likewise folks like Otto von Bismarck, the 19th Century statesman and conservative by any definition, is transmogrified into a liberal in Goldberg's odd world view. That Hitler, Hirohito, Franco and their ilk more often than not imagined themselves as reactionaries and would be appalled at the liberal label (in WWII the Liberals were the good guys) is another bit of irony which Goldberg chooses to miss.

Part of the problem results from Goldberg committing the same mistake to which he rightly accuses people on the left, misusing language and rendering a term meaningless. While it is true that Fascism is a statist ideology, that does not mean that all statists are Fascists (remember Logic 101, "all beagles are dogs, but not all dogs are beagles"). As an ideology Fascism seeks to dismantle democratic institutions and use the instruments of the state to suppress dissent and is generally militaristic. Thus while Goldberg might correctly point to Woodrow Wilson's imprisonment of those who opposed WWI as Fascist act, Wilson fails in the second test; the Reichstag, not Congress went up in flames. Likewise FDR's internment of the Japanese, while both despicable and racist, hardly counts as Fascist, since the basis was hardly to suppress dissent. Indeed, one might look at FDR as one of histories great anti-Fascists, a man elected in time of national crisis when many, perhaps even a majority, favored some form of authoritarian rule, but who refused such suggestions working instead through the democratic process.

That in turn brings us to the point of Goldberg's book which is the most polemic and absurd. As he seeks to paint every Democrat from Wilson to Clinton with his Fascist brush he skips the Republicans, even as they commit many of the acts which he imagines Fascist under Democrats. Thus JFK's brinksmanship and calls for confrontation with the Soviets fit his definition, but Reagan's like behavior does not. Wilson's suppression of dissent likewise, but dismisses McCarthyism, with the full force of the state used to destroy the lives of American citizens who were deprived of their liberty with a smirk. And of course, George Bush, with his imagined imperium of the "unitary executive" with a right to ignore the democratic will expressed through the legislature, spy on American citizens, and hold them in indefinite detention without access to the courts, is likewise spared criticism.

As I mentioned at the beginning, "Liberal Fascism" is on occasion amusing, even funny. But if Goldberg expects to be taken seriously as a thinker, he has a long way to go. Perhaps the next time he complains about someone calling the National Review a "Fascist rag" that the term in this context is absurd and meaningless as it is through much of his book.

Goldberg is certainly not the first one to make this argument; Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, and Ludwig Von Misses all made a similar case a generation or two ago, but Goldberg's book is funny and highly readable. I finished my copy in the airport and the plane the day I bought it.

If history is written by the "winners", then the history of fascism has been written by those who have historically claimed to "fight fascism", namely Marxists and the left. Ignoring the often forgotten chapter of history when the leftist Popular Front allied themselves with fascist Germany, the left has always claimed that they alone have fought the good fight against fascism and they use the fascist club to beat their ideological opponents with. Look at recent bestsellers from Naomi Wolf and Chris Hedges and it is evident that this club of "fascism" is still used with great effect. After all, one of fascisms biggest targets were communists and conservatives don't like communists, so conservatives must be fascists. It's a typical "Logical Fallacy", but considering the ability of most of today's left to come with anything resembling reasoned thinking and a ideology still mired in discredited mid 18th century Marxist though, it shouldn't surprise.

In his book, Goldberg takes a good stab at a more thoughtful and objective look at fascism, and its real historical roots. Its not about whether Hitler was a vegetarian, or if Nazi Germany had welfare. Its about how these two ideological cousins, fascism and leftism are similar in both form and function and how Fascism grew out of leftists and leftist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century, who were looking for an alternate path power. If Fascism and leftism look so similar in form and function, its because one was built off the other. Fascism developed as a fascio, a form of radical socialism. While opposing communism and social democracy, fascism was rooted in radical leftist dogma, including the theories of those such as Gabriele D'Annunzio (a former anarchist), Alceste de Ambris and or former socialist Benito Mussolini. Both fascism and leftism in general share as a prime goal collectivization for the common good of the people and the use of totalitarian power and violence to achieve this.

This is by no means a new argument, but its one that challenges the long held conventional wisdom of the demagogues who have appropriated the definition of fascism, and its time to remake that definition into what it really was.

Should be read along with Joshua Muravchik's, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism for more background.

The amount research that has gone into this book is amazing. Those who attack Goldberg from the Left will undoubtedly avoid mentioning the facts presented in this work. Check out, for example, the admiration that Benito M. had for JM Keynes and his ideas. This is a book that should be read by anyone concerned about the power of the state. Peter Schweizer, Hoover Institution

People sure do hate Jonah Goldberg, especially people who've never met him and have no interest in what he has to say. I, for one, quite enjoy Jonah's work because he peppers his facts and extensive research with humor and pop culture analogies all too often shunned by "intellectuals." It's not difficult to be smart and funny, to know history and current event, but so few pundits do it. Jonah does, and does it well. I look forward to reading the whole book (just 40 pages in) and writing a second review, but I couldn't just sit by and allow these attack reviews to go unanswered.

This is a perfect airplane book. The cover will insure that you have an empty seat next to you to stretch out, the content will keep you entertained even during the inevitable delays, and the bright red cover makes it hard to lose. What more can you ask for in a book?

As for the negative criticism? Goldberg has committed the unpardonable sin of our modern culture. He deigns to use actual history to support his arguments. The fact that he uses lots of it and uses it accurately only compounds the faux pas. It puts his critics in the uncomfortable position of having to do actual research of their own if they wish to engage him.

I've read the book. It has it's weak spots and reaches too far in places, but overall Goldberg makes a sustained and coherent case for his premise, and critics will have to do more than feel hurt and sling mud if they want to refute him.

This is more than the standard --"first chapter/last chapter/ back cover/ with filler" --offering that dominates this genre.

First of all, allow me to say that I have purchased and read this book -- something I believe few, if any, of the negative reviewers have done.

This is an important work, tracing the intellectual development of the idea that the all-powerful people's State should always trump the individual and be in firm control of all aspects of the population's culture, education, defense or military expansion, information, health and economy, from its modern beginnings under Wilson to the currently epoused nanny state. One could go further back to the French Revolution or further to Thomas More, of course, but given the deplorable state of history knowledge in the US, this might well be counter-productive. Monarchies need not be considered as they are not states that derive their legitimacy from the people -- but rather from God and inheritance.

The most negative aspect of this book is its title, "Liberal Fascism." A careful reader will learn what is meant by the author, but the vast majority will simply see the juxtaposition of the two words, "Liberal" and "Fascism" and read into this anything their pre-conceived ideas suggest. Actually, the author meant to describe something like "Benevolent Fascism", "Soft Fascism", "Smiley-Face Fascism", or my favorite, "Fuzzy Fascism" (e.g. Fascism that will not hurt you.) The word "Liberal" is used to put a more moderate or liberal face on Fascism, something more appropriate to nanny-state fascism. If the reader misinterprets the title, then little rational discussion can ensue.

The strengths of the book are in its rediscovery of the truly disturbing policies of the Wilson administration in 1917 and 1918 whereby opponents of his administration and policies were brutally suppressed. One should review the repressive Alien and Sedition Act and the Espionage Acts that Wilson promulgated. Nor did he shrink from meddling in other countries' affairs and supporting leaders he favored. The reader is advised to study his backing of Carranza and his Vera Cruz expedition in Mexico. At any rate, the Progressive movement in the US really did bring many ideas into the mainstream of American political thought that were later used as cornerstones of fascist ideology.

The author traces the support of communist and fascist states by American progressives until World War II -- an historical fact that should not be denied today as an inconvenient truth.

He also argues succinctly that Fascism replaces a religion based on a supreme being (God) with a religion based on a supreme State. So does communism as a matter of fact. The new God becomes the will of the people as interpreted and enforced by the State's elite for the people's benefit. Hence the development of the nanny-state political philosophy is a direct descendent of Fascism and features many of its evils. Bill O'Reilly has coined the name "Secular-Progressive" to describe thie political philosophy, although I wonder if he realized the historical accuracy of his term. The missing part is the militarism and genocide associated today with Fascism, which were outgrowths of the core ideas of Fascism and may well yet develop in the nanny state. After all, what would there be to stop such a development? It should be remembered that one of Hitler's early steps was to introduce full gun control in Germany to reduce any possibility of internal resistance to his regime.

The argument that "it can't happen here" should be revisited in light of Wilson's actions, Roosevelt's creation of concentration camps for Japanese during World War II, and the more recent Patriot Act. Unfortunately, many turn to the ACLU for solace, but it must be remembered that this organization was founded to foster the spread of communist ideology, and consistently supports the all-powerful leftist and secular state against the individual and religion.

The book bogs down somewhat in the argument that fascism is a product of the left and not of the right (politically.) The author is correct here, but he is swimming upstream against a powerful current from the mainstream American media which is firmly leftist and committed to the creation of a nanny state. In addition, he is trumped by the educational industry, both in public schools and in universities which has consistently taught socialist ideology since World War Two under the rubric of liberal teaching. As of this date, we have had a steady diet of socialist propaganda in our schools and universities for so long than no national or local figure has escaped its pernicious effects. What was thought to be "far-left" in 1960 is now centrist -- so far have we gone down the road towards a fascist state.

Nevertheless, the use of terms that everyone interprets in their own fashion by the author colors this discussion so markedly that constructive dialog between liberals and conservatives over this work is highly improbable. That is a great loss to our democracy.

So what is the solution? There probably isn't one. Politicians eloquently espousing "change" and "hope" have already very effectively learned how to evade issues in favor of vacuous but thrilling demogogy to rise to power. It must be remembered that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama studied Saul Alinsky thoroughly, making him possibly the most important individual in the background of the 2008 election. Senator Clinton even did double duty traveling to California to study under an unrepentant Stalinist. Perhaps they do not understand the road on which they are traveling -- after all, they've never been taught anything different. (That's why home schooling and even charter schools are such threats.) I suspect that the US will survive anything they do in the short term, but they are harbingers of things to come. The trend is there from the days of Wilson, and the ultimate denouement is in sight with Europe cheering us on out of envy every day. Even the mass demonstrations so loved by fascism to demonstrate the power and popularity of the State and its leaders are now being copied.

Before I receive thousands of hate comments from Obama supporters, allow me to state that the epithet "Fascist" does not fit Barack Obama in any way, shape or form. But the parallels I noted should not be overlooked in a study of the historical sweep of events and the acceptance of ideas. There is no question that the US has taken many steps on the road to the author's fascist nanny state, and opposition to this trend is fast being suppressed.

The primary problem I had with this book is not so much the author's associating American liberalism/progressivism with European fascism but with his attempt to say that all authoritarianism and idealization of the State is by definition, his definition, fascism. He goes so far as to say Lenin, Stalin, and Castro are fascists. This is absurd. They were, or are in the case of Castro, certainly authoritarian, but to call them fascist it to miss the clear differences in their economic policies from people like Hitler or Mussolini who were economic centrists--a Third Way between capitalism and socialism.

If one takes into consideration all of the various political ideologies present in western democracies during the 19th through the early 21st centuries and places them on a Cartesian plane with economic issues on the x-axis (left/right) and social issues on the y-axis (authoritarian/libertarian) one can more easily distinguish the differences between various points of view. Authoritarian rightists like the American Republican and Democratic Parties would be in the upper right, authoritarian leftists like Castro and Lenin would be on the upper left, libertarian leftists like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela would be on the lower left, and libertarian rightists such as Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand would be on the lower right.

Given a model of political philosophy such as above fascists are close to the center of the economic axis, though historically they leaned to the economic right, not the left as Goldberg asserts. Where Goldberg is correct is in associating fascism and American liberalism on economic issues. The Democratic Leadership Council, modern UK Labour, and the German Social Democrats under Schroder (all of whom are representative of economic centrism) have even openly embraced the term the term Third Way to represent their politics. However it must be clearly emphasized that all of these groups are certainly more socially libertarian than any historical or contemporary fascist parties.

Apart from their economic centrism - once again centrism being a center between advocates of neo-liberal capitalism and economic policy as advocated by authoritarian Marxist-Leninists or libertarian socialists - historical and contemporary fascists, like the British National Party or the French National Front, openly embrace a law and order social policy that seeks to empower the police and military while promoting race and nationalism as paramount values. American liberals, on the other had, do not advocate for these things or at least not nearly as much as the BNP or the Front national.

In general Goldberg states an interesting case for associating American liberalism with European fascism but he makes some pretty big mistakes by calling all authoritarianism fascism and calling it part of the economic left. The latter can be partially forgive as, in the American context that he is writing, the economic views that liberals and fascists share are the far left to some someone as far to the right economically as Goldberg.

This book raises important lines of intellectual inquiry that have been ignored or repressed both in popular culture and academia. I'm sure much of that stems from well earned embarrassment in the aftermath of World War II

For me, the basic premises of this book were not entirely new. F.A. Hayek certainly made it clear in his The Road to Serfdom how Fascist and Nazi ideas grew out of socialism. Hayek also makes clear in his The Counter Revolution of Science where all of these ideologies have their roots in the French Revolution. Contrary to the 1 star reviews, this book is on solid historical and intellectual ground.

Nor is the discussion of Woodrow Wilson's WWI wartime dictatorship new to me. Properly taught U.S. Constitutional History or Constitutional Law classes certainly cover the Sedition and Espionage Acts. Oliver Wendell Holmes opinion in the Schenk case caused me to think, one afternoon in 1969. what might have happened to Jane Fonda had Wilson rather than Johnson or Nixon been President during the Vietnam War. I think she would have been hanged.

Speaking of Holmes, don't forget that one of the great scenes in the movie Judgment at Nuremberg is where the attorney defending the Nazi collaborator quotes from Holmes's opinion in Buck v. Bell.

Nor is the idea new that the National Recovery Administration (the other NRA) was a fascist undertaking. The Blue Eagle lives on at the beginning of movies from the early 1930's. I recall documentaries on the New Deal with newsreels from the 1930's with marching bands and showgirl reviews. The Nazi's had a better filmmaker but the idea was the same.


What accounts for all the foaming at the mouth over this book? During the 1950's, many academicians had an embarrassing and dangerous paper trail of bad ideas behind them. By the 1960's, since Mussolini and Hitler had been humiliatingly defeated, they were past history. Who cares? Castro, Guevara, Ho, and Mao were all the rage. Political theory classes became all about the professor's whimsy rather than a discipline.
The result is that many speak about politics today with no knowledge or understanding of the origins of their ideas. When so confronted, they become enraged.

To Goldberg's credit, he does not spare "conservatives" from his irony either. George W., Pat Buchanan have expressed ideas and programs that are essentially Liberal Fascism as well.

Yesterday, I listened to a Los Angeles AM radio news station that purports to report business news. The stock market was down 50 points on top of other declines. The President was declaring a stimulus package. The host was breathlessly taking phone calls on what people should do with their stocks! What to do with that mortgage? How do we save our economy? Who is going to help us?

Good grief. It occurred to me that not only does the media believe in Liberal Fascism but creating a panic boosts ratings and the government action gives them something "serious" with which to fill up their time. And if people are panicked into selling good assets at steep discounts, what is their freedom worth to them?

Update: I had to allow some of the ideas in this book to percolate and give them some more thought. Jonah Goldberg makes a number of connections that were new to me. Most accounts I've read of the Progressive movement were favorable treatments. The Progressives were civic minded citizens cleaning up the corruption of the political parties and big industries. Most of these historical accounts are long on the practical reforms and there is no diminishing the importance of them in changing American politics(direct primary, initiative, referendum, local nonpartisanship.) But the intellectual influence on the Progressives of Nietzsche, Hegel, and Comte are not commonly discussed in these event driven narratives. From Nietzsche comes the idea that God is dead therefore conventional morality should be thrown out, from Hegel comes historicism or the idea that history is a march of progress, and from Comte comes the idea that society is like a giant machine and is suitable for social engineering. I oversimplify, of course, but all of them lead to the destruction of individual rights in favor of the power of the state.

I was also not aware of the influence of William James and his ideas of pragmatism on Georges Sorel and later on Italian fascism. From James comes the idea of the will to believe, and when combined with Nietzsche's will to power becomes the basis for the big lie. This unaccountable naked power combined with an amoral regard for human rights and liberty along with delusions of inevitability led to much of the misery of the twentieth century.

I knew of Woodrow Wilson's contempt for some aspects of our Constitution, but not the extent. The claim of the modern Democratic Party to be successors to the party of Jefferson is of course an intellectual fraud but that fraud didn't begin with Franklin Roosevelt. It began with Wilson. Wilson despised the separation of powers and now appears to have desired a living evolving constitution rather than one that limited the powers of government.

Jonah Goldberg has written an important much needed book.

This book is a mishmash of historical references, clumsily twisted and lashed together to promote Goldberg's own political views. It's not particularly humorous, and it's certainly not scholarly. It is provocative, but only in the sense that sticking your tongue out at someone is.

This book was purchased for me as a gift for Christmas 2006. It was definitely worth the wait!

Jonah Goldberg has put together a serious and very accessible work that lays bare the silly name calling games of the left. Unfortunately, the nature of debate within the American left often finds it genesis in emotion rather than fact. As such, I am not sure those who really need to read this book will ever do much more than stomp their feet and shout pejoratives.

In my home state of CA the government is moving to take control of all home thermostats for the collective good. Whether it is politically correct speech, hate crime legislation, automobile cell phone bans, motorcycle helmet laws, trans-fat bans, limiting soda in schools, yadda-yadda-yadda... The forces of "Good" have their roots in a very dark part of the left side of the political spectrum.

Of course in the end we will cede many of our freedoms "for the children" or "for the environment" or for whatever de jour heartstring-pulling claptrap comes down the pike. It is a sad site to behold.

As we continue this uneducated stampede toward nannystateism, it is important to deeply and profoundly ponder the truism that those who are willing to have a master certainly deserve one.

Freedom deserves a hearty defense and only serious minded people armed with facts will be able to defend our most precious possession. Do yourself a favor: Buy this book - Read this book - Share this book!

One of the most reveling comments made by the author about this book is when in an interview with Alex Koppelman, he stated: "Mussolini was born a socialist, he died a socialist, he never abandoned his love of socialism, he was one of the most important socialist intellectuals in Europe and was one of the most important socialist activists in Italy, and the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I." Now let's dissect this statement a bit. In reality Mussolini was called a fascist because he called HIMSELF a fascist. He coined the phrase and applied it to himself. Second, Mussolini's persecution of socialists and communists in Italy is well documented, clearly he was at odds with their vision for the economy, politics and the social order in general. Thirdly, what is most distinctive about fascism, particularly Italian fascism is the relation between the financial and business elite and the state. The interests of the this elite was promoted fervently by the state under fascism.
So, this is quite anecdotal evidence, but I would hope that someone who is attempting to rewrite the last 60 years of history would at least know something about history.

The easiest way to shut down any political discussion is to start comparing the opposition to nazis. And thats basically all this book does. As much as it has a point, I guess the point of the book is that "if you call us fascists we can start calling you fascists too". Whatever.

The author's idea is to create an unbroken chain of fascism in the American left extending back to men like FDR and Wilson. And thats part of the absudity of the argument. The author decides essentially that any left of center politics are fascism. But the only way thats really possible is to apply some highly selective logic in creating what are basically false arguments. Why false? Because the simple truth is that Nazi Germany and America under FDR were not remotely the same.

He recycles lots of old "you are nazis" arguments. The logic goes that Hilter was a vegitarian and Hitler was a Nazi. Therefore all vegitarians are nazis. Its not just bad, its Ann Coulter bad.

Of course the real purpose here is that the reader is probably supposed to realize that and then have the eureka moment of bad logic where it is suddenly clear that any accusation of fascism must be just as absurd and just as false. Proud conservatives should henceforth react to being call facists by throwing the word proudly back at their critics.

But whats all this worth in the end? Its worth about as much as one of Ann Coulter's posed photos on the grave of Joe McCarthy. This is a another "lets get under the liberals skin" conservative book. It speaks to the loser mentality that affected the movement even while it held power in the 1990s. Winners and rulers write books about policy, ideas, history and where the country should go next. Losers write long books rehtorically concerned with the question of "why don't our opponents love us".

If your looking for a book with a conservative point of view, find one that talks about what the movement is FOR and ABOUT rather than any kind of book like this that whines about liberals.

Truth can hurt, but needs to be told. I hope that more people will read this book before giving it bad reviews.

This is one the best books I've ever read in the sense that it really forces you to grapple with a wide variety of political preconceptions you may have. Mr. Goldberg compiles an enormous amount of evidence that early 20th century Progressivism has much more in common with Fascism and Nazism than the average reader probably ever knew. Despite the provocative title, the author does not under-state the differences. He simply points out the extensive, largely unknown similarities. And despite the serious subject matter and the enormous research that went into this book, it's a very well-written and easy read.

This book raises so many issues regarding the proper role of government, the extent to which it's fair to compare ideologies on procedural as well as substantive grounds, the extent to which linguistic limits hamper the entire debate and many other philosophical questions that I can't possibly do anything but trivialize them by pretending to write a synopsis here. I've posted a number of comments in the many, many forums that have cropped up regarding this interesting thesis, and I'll just repeat that this is wonderful revisionist history. You may not agree with the author's thesis. You may think he over-states the opposite thesis, but I guarantee you will learn more about Nazism and Fascism than you ever have, and you will definitely not think of them the same way again.

I highly recommend this book. Jonah is a very witty and insightful journalist. He hits the nail on the head, and makes you laugh as well. I am not surprised that the book has garnered some negative comments. Liberals/lefties seem to belive in "free speech for me but not for thee." Keep writing Jonah!

The reaction of leftists against this book has been strong in its emotional content, but weak in its intellectual content, and rightly so. To associate ones' opponents with fascism should draw a strong emotional response. Welfare state liberals should know this because they have been hurling false accusations of fascism against their opponents for decades. Conservative and Libertarians have been characterized as "right wing", along with fascists and Nazis. In some instances Leftists have explicitly conflated Conservatism and Libertarianism with Nazism- without really substantiating their opinions on this matter.

Was there ever really a basis for comparing conservatives and Libertarians to Nazis and Fascists? How do they compare on domestic policy? The fact of the matter is that Mussolini and Hitler favored extensive government regulation of industry and finance. Hitler also favored gun control, heavy progressive taxes, public health care, public works projects, public education, and minimum wage laws. Hitlerean Germany followed a Keynesian type policy of demand management (see also Barkai: Nazi Economics). The New Deal and Nazi economics were both patterned after Mussolini's program. The fact of the matter is that Nazi Germany adopted extensive central planning. The Nazi economy was run by four-year plans, administered by Hermann Göring. Libertarians and Economic Conservatives are clearly opposed to such policies. Do Welfare state liberals oppose or support such policies?

The Liberal-Left favors regulation of the economy by government officials. The far left favors an agenda that is disturbingly similar to Fascist/Nazi policies. The New Deal was seen as fascistic from the outset:

"Among the early Roosevelt fascist measures was the National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) of June 16, 1933 .... [these ideas] were first suggested by Gerard Swope (of the General Electric company)... They were adopted by the United States Chamber of Commerce. During the campaign of 1932, Henry I. Harriman, president of that body, urged that I agree to support these proposals, informing me that Mr. Roosevelt had agreed to do so. I tried to show him that this stuff was sheer fascism; that it was a remaking of Mussolini's "corporate state" and refused to agree to any of it. He informed me that in view of my attitude, the business world would support Roosevelt with money and influence. That for the most part proved true." Herbert Hoover

Hoover Memoirs 3:420

To be fair, one should note that Germany already had an intrusive government before Hitler came to power. It would also be grossly unfair to compare Liberal Democrats and Fascists on foreign policy- but conservatives and libertarians also oppose fascistic foreign policies. Hitler favored economic policies and other domestic policies that Democrats have imposed on America. Other books have made this point, but this point bears repeating.

Leftists and Liberal Democrats have been making completely absurd comparisons between Fascists and the conservative/Libertarian right for decades. This is not turnabout as fair play because there never was any factual basis for leftist accusations against conservatives and libertarians. There are real and significant similarities between Fascism and welfare state liberalism, mainly on economic policy. Democrat Woodrow Wilson DID jail war protestors, including Eugene Debs. Wilson also segregated Federal employees. It was Wilson's Republican successor Warren Harding who pardoned Debs and desegregated Federal employees. Self-described progressives ought to be more aware of history. FDR did try to "pack the supreme court" and "purge the congress" (his words, not mine). FDR did inter Americans of Japanese ancestry. So-called progressives, like FDR, TR, and Wilson did things that should disgust modern Liberals. Yet liberal democrats praise these presidents. Wake up and smell what you on the left have been shoveling.

Those on the left who are annoyed by these facts should be more careful about who they refer to as fascists. They should also reconsider their beliefs. Contrary to what they believe increased federal regulation and taxation does not promote or lead to a truly liberal and free society. In reality, "government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master". The Liberal-left has been as foolish in conflating Conservative and Libertarians with fascists and Nazis as they have in ignoring the obvious parallels between their policies and fascist policies. They are mad at Goldberg because his case is factual, like it or not.

This book is a surprisingly subtle review of what for want of a better word might be termed "collectivism" in American and European politics over the last century. Goldberg is quite the opposite of Ann Coulter, who hammers every point home. As a matter of fact, "Liberal Fascism" can be read simply as an account of Naziism and Italian Fascism. The fact that the NSDAP was in part a socialist party (it's right in the name - the "S") has been known to anyone even remotely familiar with German history in the 1920s and 1930s. Again, the connection between "New Age" ideas and Adolf Hitler has been known to anyone who has ever heard of Guido von List and Lans von Liebenfels. But Goldberg carefully brings these strands together, and ties them up fairly neatly.

The main surprise to me in Goldberg's book is his analysis of Hillary Clinton as a political thinker. He takes her very seriously indeed. Unfortunately, her reiterated catch phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" for her implies massive government intervention in family and individual life.

The term "Fascist" is all over the place these days on the blogs and forums; a fave term of the Left when they point fingers in the other direction. Naturally, this book disturbs them. It clearly defines what Fascism is and as a Conservative I will say the enemy "ain't us" but we have seen and heard much from the enemy on this subject (sorry Pogo..you were wrong!).

Ignore the one-stars; few books deserve one-star and a one-star book would prompt most of us to stop reading it early on. This is, of course, what the Liberal political hit-men want you to do; which is why they are fearful of this book. Jonah's rep is excellent; they know the book will be a best seller.

Fascism takes many forms, and it doesn't mean he or we are saying modern American liberals are being fitted for Jackboots. But it IS time people understood this much misused term. We actually believe in education without bias.

Nobody is better equipped to tell it and get attention than Jonah.

Read and enjoy!

Meantime, see which of the one-star "brains" DO support: For example, books by the obscene, self-absorbed, bitter, and now unpopular Rosie O'Donnell.........then you will know who is throwing stones here. ;-)

At this point, I'm only about two thirds of the way through Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. So far, I've found the book to be fascinating. Growing up thinking that "this is just how things are", or hearing the sanitized (or romanticized) versions of recent history, it's really good to see the origins of "liberal" or "progressive" thought, its connection to the fascist or Nazi world view and the context of certain events -- like the unrest and the Great Society agenda of the 1960s.

The author approaches the subject of Liberal Fascism with considerable thoroughness. That is good, because you can get a very good sense of how things fit together, looking at things from several different angles and in different contexts. However, by the time I got halfway through the book, a lot of things were starting to sound very familiar. Since I'm not an historian, I almost wish I had waited for the Readers Digest version to come out.

The author also makes very strong links between the progressives of the early 1900s and the liberal politics of today. And, while you can draw a straight line through these respective agendas, I think the author might be overstating the links. However, as he states, "even when motives and arguments change, the substance of the policy remains in its effects" (p. 276).

All-in-all, I think this book is well worth the time it takes to read it. Certainly, anyone from the Right would gain insights from this book; but, those from the Left could also benefit from the historical perspective of his or her own political view. I think this book would be a great textbook for a college course on political history, and would provide valuable insights into a study of 20th Century American History.

So many people, to include certain friends of mine, are all too willing to write this book off as just one more salvo from the Republican noise machine without ever bothering to read it. Goldberg's title is perhaps unfortunate in this regard, as it leaves one with the impression that it is another rightist screed targeting the usual suspects--"feminazis," militant environmentalists, and the like. One friend saw the book on my desk and dismissed the title with a sneer: "Oh, liberals are fascists, right? Now that's a stretch."

Ah, but little did he know that Goldberg did not invent the phrase. It was coined by H.G. Wells, the famous turn-of-the-century science fiction novelist and visionary writer of utopian fiction. Wells, incidentally, was a thoroughgoing progressive and a socialist. He thought "liberal fascism" would be a good thing for society.

But wait! I thought fascism was racism, white supremacy, and all that.

Oh, but get this: W.E.B. Du Bois admired Hitler (specifically for his emphasis on the need for eugenics programs), and Marcus Garvey proudly said, in 1937, "We were the first fascists." Apparently he was miffed that Mussolini and Hitler were getting all the credit for their innovative approaches to government. (For those of you who don't know, Du Bois and Garvey were important early twentieth-century Black leaders).

The word "fascism" (in contemporary discourse), Goldberg points out, has become pretty much emptied of all real meaning. It has become a sort of floating signifier onto which people project various meanings as they see fit. In the last forty years, "fascism" has been served as a sort of stand-in for "extreme conservative" or "Christian fundamentalist" or "white-power racist." But pure fascism has little to do with conservatism, or religion, or the white power movement.

Goldberg begins with an anecdote--Bill Maher and George Carlin confidently asserting their definition of the word "fascism" one night on Maher's show. "Fascism is when corporations own the government," Maher said.

Uh, wrong, you ignoramus. What you've just described is monopoly capitalism, not fascism.

Goldberg does not set out to skewer the Mahers of the world exclusively, though. The neocon types who throw the term "Islamofascism" around in such a cavalier manner are just as ignorant in their own way. If you want to know what real fascism is, look to its purest example in history: Mussolini's Italy. Hitler's Germany is a close second.

Sorry Maher, but fascism is when the government owns and runs the corporations. Do you really think for one minute that the Fuhrer or Il Duce would allow any single corporation to supersede their authority? Ridiculous. And sorry neocons, but in fascism the object of worship is, ultimately, the state. There is no higher authority than the state; not even God. Ask any pious Muslim what he or she thinks of such a government, and you will be quickly disabused of any notions that "fascism" can exist hand in hand with Islam.

One strain of this goes back to the protests of the sixties and continues in protest discourse today (a la Chris Hedges' book, for example). Yet, as Goldberg shows in his detailed historical analysis, "fascism" has never really been synonymous with conservatism in any significant way. Fascism is in fact a form of radicalism, as is Christian fundamentalism, whereas conservatism is a movement that is focused essentially on the preservation of tradition and the moderation of the impulse to institute reforms.

One of the great ironies of sixties-era radicals bandying about the word "fascist" to describe Richard Nixon and his ilk is that many of those radical groups who trafficked in such talk (Weathermen, the Black Panthers) employed many of the classic brownshirt tactics of fascist agitators.

This is a great book for anyone who has been perplexed by all the shifting alliances and labels of our times, and anyone who realizes how slippery and meaningless terms like "liberal" or "conservative" or "progressive" are when you try to pin them down. What it really leads the reader to do is rethink the way we think of the political spectrum, in terms of Right, Center, and Left. The radical Right and the radical Left, for example, have much more in common with each other than the radical Left does with traditional liberalism or the radical Right has with conservatism.

Goldberg's working definition of "fascism" is pretty much this: Total worship of the state, state control of all activities and expression, and state ownership of everything. Fascism is always more and more government. The classic example of Fascism, Mussolini's Italy, is exactly this when you examine the historical record. True conservatism, on the other hand, always seeks to lessen the influence of government.

Certainly, the Franco regime in Spain was heavily Catholic and at the same time in political sympathy with Germany and Italy (but ultimately neutral during WWII), but it is important not to confuse "theocracy" with true Fascism. It had Fascist allies (Italy and Nazi Germany) during the 1930s, but was not a true fascist state itself--it was a theocratic dictatorship. Likewise, the Shah's regime in Iran and certain dictatorial regimes in Latin America (allied with the U.S. for strategic reasons) were very authoritarian, but that doesn't mean they were fascist in the true sense of the word. Authoritarian regimes can of course be very brutal and oppressive, but that does not necessarily make them fascist because they are often not premised on the notion that government should control every single aspect of a citizen's life. The Shah, for example, was fairly hands-off unless you happened to be openly critical of him or invovled in subversive activities (of course, it must be said, if either of those applied you ended up in the hands of the feared SAVAK).

Goldberg's readings of Rousseau, Robespierre, Sorel, Mussolini, Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan, and many other figures are lively and very perceptive. Many of his revelations are shocking and surprising. Woodrow Wilson, for example, has gone down DRASTICALLY in my estimation after reading Goldberg's interpretation of some of his major writings.

If Hillary Clinton-style liberalism and fascism have anything at all in common, Goldberg says, it's the notion that the state is the supreme arbiter and caretaker for all and of all. This is not a book which seeks to make a point that "liberals are fascists." It is a book, rather, which seeks to enlighten those individuals who casually throw a word (one that has a very precise meaning) around with little regard for its properly historical definition.

This is an utterly brilliant book by one of the blazingest lights on the scene. Jonah Goldberg writes like a dream, and hefts one mighty big brain. He's just plain exciting to read. A wonderful book in every way.

A cogent answer for the slingers of "Fascist" arrows at conservatives. Jonah Goldberg's well-researched new book, Liberal Fascism, reveals Adolph Hitler's National Socialist Democratic Party and the Communist Party grew from identical Socialist roots. They both advocated state control of the people and means of production and commonly pursued identical socialist programs to realize their special brand of utopia.

Liberal Fascism documents that Fascism & Communism are not enemies at all. In fact, you might say they could pass for Siamese twins and occupy the left in tandem.

Mr. Goldberg documents both fascist and communist societies rest on the same socialist pillars ¯
* The state, not the citizenry, either owns or controls all or most production.
* Like monarchies of old, the state reigns supreme over individuals. These forms of government inevitably extend control into sacrosanct areas - property, religion, family and even thought. (You see evidence in current U.S.Supreme Court decisions, attempts at public school socialist indoctrination, attacks on religion and political correctness, to name just four.)

But, aren't the two systems ideological enemies? Seems not. Marxian socialist principles under gird both. In the 1930s, the two groups clashed only because they both wanted to recruit the same German Socialist party constituents. Hitler molded the principles around nationalism. Lenin shaped his around international communism. Both degenerated into dictatorships.

Incidentally, Jonah says his title came from H.G. Wells and he had no intent to impugn the Left. This progressive and famous writer of last century coined the phrase as a "badge of honor". "Progressives must become `liberal fascists' and `enlightened Nazis,' he told the Young Liberals at Oxford in a speech in July 1932."

Jonah also gently reminds us the Left has never ceased espousing many fascist/communist principles and programs. (As if in confirmation, this book prompts near apoplexy from the anointed. Some so want to derail this topic, they hacked Goldberg's Amazon.com page, not once but twice! ¯a "first" at Amazon. To avoid debating issues, some leftists forestall any chance at honest discussion by hurling the "Fascist" label at conservatives. So, you can understand their anguish. Jonah's research pins that slur back on the throwers.

Another reviewer says the author "equates all authoritarianism with fascism." He definitely takes pains not to and deals in-depth with that idea in later chapters. Obviously the reviewer did not read all the book.

Liberal Fascism is a bombshell of a book - well worth reading to achieve a balanced view between current progressive & conservative thought.

The inconvenient truth is that Hitler was a left-wing fascist socialist. The modern leftist longs for state run health care. That is fascistic. A centralized governing force controlling every aspect of our lives is the nanny state dream of the modern leftist.

The blog writer Goldberg has a lightweight grasp of history. He cherry picks facts to fit his needs instead of trying to see the true picture of lineage in the political spectrum. It is specious to think that modern progressive movement has any lineage to Mussolini. Goldberg tortures facts to get them to fit his fantasy.
The reality is fascism makes Goldberg uncomfortable. And thats because it's true home is in the close neighborhood of his own neocon ideology.
If there was a thread of interesting conjecture, I'd pass on criticism. But I only see a polemical tract dressed up like a small college term paper.

Fascism was a specific political movement with very particular characteristics. The word "fascist" is and has been ignorantly thrown around a lot, especially by overheated leftist college students, but that's no reason to twist its meaning even further. Just because it's comforting for some segments of the conservative electorate to believe that modern American liberals are the heirs of Adolf Hitler doesn't make it correct.

The biggest problem with the book is that Goldberg's definition of fascism is so broad to make it virtually useless. In his view, any kind of collective or government action is "fascist". He concentrates on Woodrow Wilson's activities during WW1 as an example, and brings FDR into the fascist fold, but based on the fuzzy set of criteria that Goldberg sets forth not only are Wilson and FDR "fascist", but Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt could be also. In Mr. Goldberg's world, World War 2 was fought entirely by Fascists, Fascist Germans, Italians and Japanese, vs. Fascist Soviets allied with Fascist Americans. In short, it's premise is sloppy. Mr. Goldberg refuses compensate for historical context. Comparing 1930s political economy to that of today's is something that should be done very carefully. Capitalism was widely regarded as a failure in the 1930s, and virtually all industrial countries tinkered with it, including American conservatives (think Smoot-Hawley).

And that is the biggest blind alley in this work. By concentrating on political economy Goldberg ignores the more important markers of Fascism. Fascists were notoriously uninterested in economics, and Fascist political economy, such as it was, was a pastiche of free market capitalism, corporatism and socialism, and in most countries where it was ascendant it lazily morphed into support for the status quo, i.e. protecting wealthy landowners and business owners. What made Fascism a distinctive political movement was not a centrally planned economy but militarism, racial chauvinism, and a sort of false, golden age, nostalgia for monarchism, Fascism's closest relative, which is why fascist movements, especially in southern Europe attracted monarchists into their ranks.

Mr. Goldberg doesn't address these more cogent descriptors of fascism because it would contradict his thesis. Since most American liberals are less militaristic then his own conservative base, to highlight Fascism's militarism would destroy his argument. And by neglecting Fascism's kitcsh-laden obsession with the nuclear family, he avoids uncomfortable comparisons with American social conservatism. And by dismissing Fascism's anti-communism as mere factional competition, he ignores Fascism's most important base--lower middle class shop owners and artisans, terrified of losing their property in a Marxist revolution. Hitler did admire Stalin's totalitarianism, but he hated Marxism, which if Mr. Goldberg cracked open Mein Kampf, he would know.

But I suspect Mr. Goldberg does know, which is why in the end his book is so dishonest. It is not an inquiry of history or politics, it's a partisan polemic, which is fine, but buyers should know that when they buy it.

I did go in biased - not thinking I'd find much new given that the title already makes perfect sense (to me). I am surprised at just how enlightening it was re: the roots of the "new" oppressive left. What a great stroke of timing Mr. Goldberg has had with this book, as publisher Ezra Levant begins his odyssey through a leftist, Albertan Kangaroo court for thought crime. This is a serious book that I hope fosters a conversation regarding its thesis in areas more widely spread than the typical conservative corners in which it would find no disagreement.

Fascism is a charged and blurry word these days, used by both the left and the right to assail their enemies and to incite their followers to action. Mr. Goldberg with LIBERAL FASCISM clearly intends to do both.

It's easy to understand why some of Mr. Goldberg examples of "liberal fascism" may, at least on the surface, ring true. There are elements of mass politics on the left and the right that are similar: mass rallies, militarism, the marginalization and extermination of one's enemies.

It may be helpful to review a definition of fascism offered by Robert O. Paxton in his insightful work, THE ANATOMY OF FACISM to identify the commonalities between mass politics across the political spectrum, and, at the same time, firmly place fascism on the right wing of that spectrum, where, despite Mr. Goldberg's best efforts, it decidedly belongs. Here's the definition:

"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

I would suggest that Mr. Goldberg characterizations of FDR, the Clintons and other liberals as fascists fails to take into account the latter part of Paxton's definition. FDR, for instance, was despised by wealthy elites and often charged by them with being "a traitor to his class." A descendant of New York's Patroons, he did not identify his interests with the elites of his time. Neither did FDR take power by employing "militant nationalists" -- he was elected to office three times by the American people. Nor did he pursue the New Deal "with redemptive violence." It could be argued that by allowing Japanese-American citizens to be interned in concentration camps, he engaged in "internal cleansing without ethical or legal restraints;" however, it is something of a specious argument. The internment of Japanese-Americans was promoted by panicked nativists on both the right and the left.

The Clinton's did have a fairly friendly relationship with some elites; after all, Bill Clinton took over George H.W. Bush's NAFTA project and managed to get it passed over the protestations of unions and working Americans, so could be guilty of "external expansion" on this score. His promotion of "globalization" -- which outside the US was seen as the promotion of "Americanization" -- could qualify him as an expansionist as well. President Clinton, however, did not engage in "redemptive violence" in the United States, and so on that score at least, does not fit the definition offered by Paxton.

It is inevitable, I suppose, given the current political climate where intolerance and invective is big business, that Mr. Paxton's definition of fascism will be assailed as the work of a member of the "liberal professoriate" regardless of Mr. Paxton's political beliefs. In addition, the definition will no doubt be attacked as incomplete or malicious or tendentious.

It is offered here as a counter to Mr. Goldberg's definition of fascism, a definition which he never states forthrightly, but relates only through the selective slander of the political enemies of the right and a willful misreading of history.

The further I get into the book, the more I enjoy it. The further I get into the reviews of the book, particularly the one-star reviews, the less I enjoy those reviews because they simply don't make sense.

Did those reviewers really read and reflect on the 400+ pages??? OR, is this just a cheap attempt to suppress opinions they don't like. Intellectually lazy reviews, since they are obviously "right" and the author is obviously "wrong?"

I smell a lot of bad motives in those reviews. Attempts to suppress, intolerance, and dismissive personal attacks to avoid addressing the author's work.

I picked this up after seeing the owner pulled to pieces on the Daily Show. Its an interesting polemic, but holds no water. Seriously - I suggest you flick through it at a bookstore and you will quickly put it down again.

To be a conservative in the modern world is to have a thick skin, because inevitably one is going to be called a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, and especially a fascist. Jonah Goldberg points out that modern liberalism is in fact fascistism with a smiley face. There are fascinating parallels between liberalism and not only the kind of fascism practiced in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s, but even National Socialism (aka Nazism.) Goldberg's book will enrage liberals and enchant everyone else.

With a leftist monopoly over history textbooks, college campuses, and the media it is very difficult to get any sort of dissenting opinion out there in the face of leftist censorship. Jonah Goldberg should be applauded for exposing one the biggest leftist myths out there, but instead I am sure he will be called a Nazi or a Fascist by his leftist critics. The big leftist myth that Mr. Goldberg goes after is the one that says Nazism and Fascism were conservative ideologies. As a big conservative and a person who has lost a few of my ancestors to the Nazis, I find it very offense when Fascism/Nazism is associated with right-wing conservatives. Now this book is not trying to convince you that the Democratic Party and the Nazis are one in the same, but it instead shows that Fascism/Nazism were leftist ideologies. What the book does do is show that the policies of Democratic Party, from the Progressive Era to the modern day, were and are similar to their fascist European relatives, but instead favor niceness over raw brutality.

Mr. Goldberg starts the book by trying to define Fascism, which is hard to do because as he says the many definitions of Fascism makes it similar phenomenon to Quantum Mechanics Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The next part of the book focuses on how both Mussolini and Hitler were men of the left. However, do not worry there are many more examples of leftist Nazi and Fascist policies strewn throughout the book. Through these examples Mr. Goldberg dissects the normal leftist argument that since the Nazis were nationalistic, racists, anti-communists, and evil therefore they must have been conservative right wingers. Honestly I have always found it hard to believe that after any educated adult reads the domestic and economic policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy that they could still think that they were right-wing. As Mr. Goldberg points out, it is hard not to be leftist when the name of your party is the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Some of the leftist policies and philosophy that the Nazis desired or implemented were: having an anti-capitalist heavily regulated economy, the promotion of the state and the common good over the individual, secularism, anti-Christian rhetoric and policies, anti-Church, anti-Monarchy, anti-traditional family values, free health care, guaranteed jobs, the confiscation of wealth and land by the state, pro-environmentalism, pro-vegetarianism, pro-gun control, eugenics, pro-abortion, a ban on smoking, pro-animal rights, and other leftist big government programs that interfere in ones personnel life. Again it is simply amazing that anyone could pass over all of these issues and call the Nazi movement conservative and not leftist. This is the reason you never get into the domestic and economic polices of Nazi Germany in school because they are clearly on the left side of the spectrum. This is also why Hitler was no friend of monarchists, the aristocracy, and true German conservatives, who tried to assassinate him more than once. Nazism was to the right of international communism, but they were still far to the left. Their nationalistic socialist message was in competition with the Soviet brand of communism for the hearts and minds of the German people. As the book explains, today's history books just support and regurgitate old Soviet propaganda than some how Nazism/Fascism was the opposite of communism even though the share so much in common. Unfortunately this will not change until history books and professors become more fair and balanced.

Additionally this book examines just how similar the American Progressive movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was very close to bringing fascism to the USA. One thing you see by reading this book is that many of the "crimes" that the left accuses President Bush of were actually carried out by the Wilson and FDR administrations. The book goes into detail showing how Wilson tried to transform the United States into a fascist and socialist country during WWI. The book then clearly shows that FDR's New Deal was very similar to the same domestic and economic programs being instituted in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. The book next goes on to demonstrate how fascist polices were part of the turbulent 1960's, as well as spotlight the nice liberal fascism promoted by Hillary Clinton. After that the books wraps up by showing that big government compassionate conservatism can also be shown to be close to fascism. I was very glad that this portion was also included in order to show that fascist policies can also be found on the right and center, Pat Buchanan and Michael Bloomberg being a good example of this phenomenon.

My hope is this book will help in laying the leftist myth that the Nazis/Fascists were conservatives to rest. I also hope it spurs readers to investigate other leftist myths and lies in the history books concerning topics such as the Flat Earth myth, the "Dark Ages", the Galileo affair, the Spanish Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, and the general leftist myths that religion and conservatives are anti-science and blamed for every evil that has ever occurred.

Additionally if one would like read more about the absurd domestic and economic policies of the leftism, as well as millions that have died under their rule read Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot by Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihin and Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik

Also if you would like further reading on how Hitler and his atheist advisors hated the Church and wanted to kidnap the Pope read A Special Mission: Hitler's Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius the XII by Dan Kurzman

Well in closing I highly recommend the book and even though it is only January I think this will be the book of the year.

This is a big book and can be a bit tedious in places. Having said that, I highly recommend it as strong medicine for some pernicious distortions of history. This is political science, history and quite a bit of philosophy organized by chronology. A few points are made with more heat than necessary but it is apparent that it would draw intense fire from the left no matter what the title or the cover art. He begins with a chapter that sets out his theme; conservatives are not the heirs of the Nazis. That would seem obvious except for the rhetoric from the left which stimulated him to write the book in the first place. For example, on page 4 Jonah points out that Congressman Charles Rangel called the "Contract With America" of the 1994 election " more extreme than Nazism." Bill Clinton said in 2000 that the Texas GOP Platform was "a fascist tract." There is plenty of provocation for an angry response. This, however, is not an angry book.

I fancy myself a student of history, having written one history, but I learned a good deal of new information. Mussolini, for example, was an extremely intellectual socialist and editor of a newspaper called "Class War." He was the author of a number of well received books. What I did not know was how popular he was with the Progressive Movement in the US. He even appeared in a 1923 Hollywood movie with Lionel Barrymore. His reputation with the American left was high until World War II. The founder of Fascism was a socialist and an inspiration, readily acknowledged at the time, to the Progressive Movement. Of course, the chapter on Woodrow Wilson was a revelation to me. The War Socialism of Wilson's administration is not well known and he is mostly a cardboard figure in American history. Most interest seems to be directed at the aftermath of the war and the failure of the Versailles Treaty. How he organized the government during the war is ignored and the excesses pointed out by Goldberg in his book are almost all new information. I will have to read more from a neutral source as Wilson seems to have been the beneficiary of a whitewash. I do know from family history how the Germans were vilified during the war but did not know how much this was government policy. Perhaps Roosevelt's internment of the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor had more precedent than is usually understood.

Goldberg's chapter on Hitler points out once again that the Nazis were socialists and Hitler had many interests that are present in the Environmentalist Left of today. He was very health conscious, a vegetarian and violently anti-smoking. In a later chapter, Goldberg goes back over this information and compares the Nazis, with their mystical attachment to the German forest, to modern day environmentalists. There is a trend running back to the Fabian Socialists, through the Nazis, on to American academics that is tolerant of genocide, as long as it is in a good cause. The current enthusiasm for abortion began with eugenic impulses of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. She is a saint of Feminism but her interest in eugenics is ignored. In 1922, she wrote," More children from the fit, less from the unfit- that is the chief issue of birth control." The fact that 70% of abortions are performed on black women is another statistic that never seems to make its way into the newspapers.

Goldberg pulls together a number of threads that were either ignored or distorted in American history. It can get tedious, as I said, but the end result is a fascinating accomplishment of revisionist history. It is an excellent companion to Amity Schlaes history of the Great Depression, "The Forgotten Man." Both of them emphasize the Progressive roots of Herbert Hoover and Schlaes makes the point that his policies toward the deepening financial crisis in 1932 differed little from Roosevelt's that followed. Goldberg discusses at length the open fascism of Hugh Johnson's National Recovery Administration until it was declared unconstitutional.

There are times when Goldberg gets a bit over the top, as when he considers "Forrest Gump" an example of a fascist movie. I agree with him, however, that "American Beauty" was such an example. His comparison of the Nazis' anti-Semitism and the popularity of "Whiteness Studies" in college curricula may seem extreme but I'm not sure. He may well have a point. All in all, I highly recommend this book although it is not light reading. It is pretty good history and will stimulate some reconsideration of the Progressive Movement in America and its modern liberal descendants.

I admit that I have only read a small part of this book, but I feel that reading the summary and the reviews gives me enough information to write review of this book. According to the author the fact that Mussolini was once a socialist makes Fascism a form of socialism. According to this logic, since David Horowitz was once a Maoist and is now a Neo-Conservative, then Neo-Conservatism must be a form of Maoism. The fact that Nazism was also called National Socialism does not make Nazism a type of Socialism but that the term is a misnomer like the Russia's Liberal Democratic Party of Zhirinovsky which is actually an ultra nationalist party. The Nazi founder Anton Drexler used to be apart of the Fatherland Party which had recieved funds from the German military. Although the Nazis used some leftist rhetoric for a while they recieved heavy support from big industrialists and it was the right wing nationalists who formed a coalition with them helping to bring Hitler to power. The leftists in the Nazi movement were purged in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 after Hitler came to power.

Contary to Goldberg says Liberal academics are not the heirs of fascism, such academics were suppresed under Hitler and Mussolini, much like what Horowitz is trying to do now. Also, under Hitler, religion was not purged from public policy. Both Hitler and Mussolini signed Concordats with the Pope and in Mein Kampf Hitler wrote that he was an agent of the creator. German soldiers during World War Two wore belts buckles that read "Gott mit uns" (God is With us). The head of the fascist government in Slovakia was Jozef Tiso a Catholic Priest. It is extremely deceptive of Goldberg to link FDR and other liberals with Fascism. The Liberty League and other American Fascist groups of that era hated FDR and even tried to overthrow him in a coup.

Both Hitler and Mussolini supported the free market and their policies hurt the working class. Under them Unions and Strikes were abolished, state enterprizes were privatized, minnimum wage and safety regulations wer eliminated. In Italwy child labor was reintroduced and in both countries workers worked longer for less pay. Taxes were lowered on business, the inheritance tax was abolished in Italy while taxes were increased for the average person. That isn't socialism that Reaganomics.

Here are some better resources about Fascism. Blackshirts & Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, Fascism and Social Revolution FRIENDLY FASCISMThe Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR which details the attempts at a Fascist coup against FDR. Also, this online book The Nazi Hydra in America, http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/noon.html and this article that shows why Hitler wasn't a Leftist. http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

I always thought it was obvious that fascism was a left-wing phenomenon: After all, they were National Socialists.
Mr Goldberg brings to light exactly the parallels of fascist Italy, Germany, and America under Woodrow Wilson and FDR. You may disagree with his definition of fascism, but it would be hard to dismiss the parallels.
Especially interesting is the chapter on economics and those nasty "right-wing" corporations.
This is a very readable and informative book which I'm sure will earn Jonah pariah status. Highly recommended.

If I could have I would have gave this book 0 stars. This book is at best misguided and at worst propaganda. Fascism is a thing of the Right wing, the Left wing has communism, they are two different idealogical principals. The author also did an interview with John Stewart of The Daily Show which proved the author didn't know what he was talking about.

I confess the title to my review is not original. It came from a doctoral candidate (Scott Eric Kaufman blogging at "Acephalous")whose academic focus includes the writings of Herbert Spencer. When he responded to Goldberg's public request for other people to do his research on Spencer for him, his expertise was dismissed out of hand because it didn't fit Goldberg's thesis.

So we know going in that by his own admission, Goldberg couldn't be bothered to read the writings upon which he purports to base certain critical parts of his argument. Possibly he ended up with something from Custom Term Papers.

At any rate, it explains a lot about this book when you understand it's the effort of someone working backwards from his own preconceived notions.

How else to explain this laughable attempt to connect fascism to liberalism: "This is the monumental fact of the Nazi rise to power that has been slowly airbrushed from our collective memories: the Nazis campaigned as socialists ... ." ?

This in support of his absurd thesis that "modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots," and thus "fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left."

Any college student who has read even the basic background texts can point out the logical fallacy of these arguments and the sheer absurdity of his oversimplification of complex theory.

Goldberg approaches history ahistorically and poltical theory by way of partisan hackery. In other words, he just makes stuff up.

Serious historians and theorists will rightly laugh this buffoon off the stage (a stage his mommy put him on in the first place). However, the wingnut audience will love it, because it gives them a new catchphrase to mindlessly toss at those with whom they disagree...as evidenced by so many of those articulate five star reviews.

I think that people reading this book (including the author himself) misunderstand a basic concept: that despite what they might have called themselves, the forces of Mussolini and Hitler were certainly NOT socialist, they were fascist. There is a distinct difference between the two concepts, which this book fails to realize. Fascism is governed by a dictator whose government quashes the voice of the opposition. Socialism is a society governed by the collective. Yes, socio-economic rules are imposed, but BY THE COLLECTIVE, not a dictator. The people rule in a socialist society.

What many of the positive readers of this book likewise fail to realize is that our own American society has some basic socialist elements. Public education, anyone? And where would our country be without public education, may I ask? Chances are, your doctors and the people who farm the food that sustains you went to public school. Socialism supports equal opportunity for people, just as our constitution does in stating that "all men were created equal." Fascism, which tends to include state-supported racism and terrorist tactics to subdue the populace, is the opposite.

The author would do well to brush up on his history as well as his elementary political science. He does not understand the social, economic, or political theories that his book is based on. Not only are his assumptions wildly inaccurate and without support, but he willingly bends the truth in order to reflect his goals of making conservatives afraid of their own shadows. Impossible leaps of imaginary logic are made in order to prove his "point," as it might be termed. If you might recall, Mussolini himself came up with the term "fascism" and did indeed apply it to himself. In other words, he did not "live and die" calling himself a socialist. You might also forget that people may call themselves one thing, but be in practice another. In this case, those dictators which labeled themselves "socialist" in the 1940's might have labeled their party as such, but in practice were nothing like it. The mere definition does not allow for a dictator! I think that any liberal can agree that the last thing that they would find acceptable is a dictator in America. Therefore, Mr. Goldberg, your point is moot. You clearly do not even understand the concepts that your book is based on. Gross misinformation, which was irresponsible to write and publish.

Mussolini wrote:-

Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and the economic sphere.

He was also opposed to democracy. So you can easily see that the author is trying to twist the meaning of fascism which more closely aligns to the current Republican line of thought.

Goldberg's book, which includes meticulously researched supporting documentation, is a well-written and badly needed response to the lies and myths that we have been inundated with by leftist socialist Democrats and some liberal Republicans over the past 90+ years. The parallel lines of thought of socialists, fascists, progressives, communists, and Nazis (national socialists) of the first half of the 20th century and the methods employed currently by the Democrat party and their leftist base to force the same ideology upon American society are so starkly portrayed that the similarities cannot be missed. As people like David Horowitz in his book "Radical Son" have shown, there is no room for the exchange of differing ideas with political socialist elites about our Constitution, the free marketplace, personal responsibility, etc. And the left seeks not only to impose their ideology by any means but also to destroy those who disagree and ultimately, if possible, erase any memory or record that differing views existed. I can recall my grandfather's own accounting of his contempt for Wilson's decision to take us into World War I (Goldberg does a great job of highlighting Wilson's duplicitous decision) and the fascist methods/misinformation Wilson employed to impose his will on the American public. If America had stayed out of WWI there would have been no Hitler, Lenin, or Stalin and the murder of millions that they enabled and no World War II as we know it. This book needs to be required reading in American high school classrooms along with F.A. Hayek's "The Constitution of Liberty", de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", Adam Smith's, "The Wealth of Nations", Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics", our founding documents and other books in a similar vein.

This right wing propaganda piece starts with an oxymoron (i.e., Liberal Fascism) and gets much worse from there. Goldberg has no credibility.

Goldberg's weird definition of fascism was customized to make it possible to say things like this:

"The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore."

But that's just loony. If Goldberg had written "1984", at the end he'd have O'Brien saying:

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a daycare worker giving a toddler a sugarfree bran muffin -- forever."

Or how about this:

"A hug is liberal fascism's equivalent of a pistol shot to the back of the head."

You can have infinite fun with Goldberg. Who was the first liberal fascist, for example? Wasn't it Cardinal Biggles with his terrifying Comfy Chair?

Anytime Alan Colmes has an apoplectic fit over an author's temerity in mentioning facts inconvenient to the leftist cause, you know that author's work has got to be good.

The truth of the argument and analysis advanced in Liberal Fascism is well known to anyone versed in history and economics, and has been for decades. Of course, most people are versed in neither (witness the otherwise inexplicable election of a continuous, oozing flow of leftists); therefore, this popularization of arguments advanced more forcefully elsewhere is welcome.

The single, although significant, downside of the book is its utter futility. The people who most need to absorb the insights it contains have been rendered incapable of understanding them. The people who have successfully retained their cognitive faculties already know the truth of the core assertions contained within and will find little new here.

I picked up this title on the suggestion of renowned commentator Daniel Pipes (who said: "This books changed the way I understand politics") and am suitably impressed. While Goldberg certainly takes some swipes at his opponents, his basic thesis is sound:

Fascism has the same roots and fundamental principles as Soviet Communism (not as Nazism), and should be treated as a similar ideology.

This straightens out a lot of confusion, and further makes it easier to identify just which groups in society today, making it trivial to counter their misinformation. It was, BTW, Stalin who launched the smear that Fascism is a right-wing ideology. Presumably to divert attention from the fascist nature of his own regime.

While no book is perfect, this one is so groundbreaking that anyone (European or American) interested in the subject should pick up a copy and learn.

There's a lot of ammunition here motivating to engage in the public debate, too. That's Good.

This book gave me many hours of interesing reading. Being involved in the educational system it is very clear that the loudest and often foulest people I have to deal with often peg themselves as "liberals". They do not permit any opinion but their own as correct and the tendency to label you as this or that mainly without evidence to prove it. I believe most fascist or neo-fascist organizations tend to utilize this technique to silence the others. I believe the Liberal wing of humanity may want to stop people from reading this book because the truth may make them free from their hate mongering ways.

What Jonah writes about in this outstanding book is exactly what I've been saying for years. I always laugh out loud at left wing losers who toss about the facist word like blacks toss around the racist word. Anyone with a working brain and an ounce of common sense can see that the people who use those words the most are in fact prime examples of the adjective they use. But when its turned around in their face and their actions exposed, it ticks them off to no end. As in any other endeavour when your fighting something or someone, you don't know your on the right track and winning unless your opponent gets PO'd. The parallels are there, they are real, and they are scary. Whats even more sad is the number of idiots who fall for the lies propagated by the left, and fall lockstep in line with them. Credit is due to these neo-communist socialists, they knew they could not beat us militarily, so they slowly and quietly infiltrated our schools, media, courts, and government and have been working their destructive deeds from within. If its not stopped, the US is doomed. If your a non-believer, but its simply because your not sure of the facts, I highly recommend this book, and hope that it will push you over onto the right side of the fence.

Just so we have our terms correct, the dictionary definition of fascism:

1: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
The label fascism may have come to being with Hitler and Mussolini, but certainly one could reach back through the centuries to find many earlier examples. Fascism is not liberal or conservative - anyone convinced that any one ideology, whether it be political or religious, is the one and true can slip into fascistic thinking. Intolerance of opposing views exists in both the right and the left and that is the true seed of fascism. Bush declaring that if you aren't with us you're against us and saying that those that opposed the war in Iraq were traitors is at its core fascist thinking. The so-called Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act are the first steps into fascism.

I laughed when I read the Nazi "liberal" policies. The first euthanasia victims of the Nazis were those in mental and long term health centers. Communists and other "intellectuals" were persecuted even before the Jews. Just because Hitler declared something doesn't mean that's what he believed. Citing Hitler's personal habits, such as vegetarianism is totally without meaning politically and implying that has such a significance is absurd.

We are constantly besieged with this insistance that leftists are "kind and tolerant", that a secular leftist government is so much more "benign" and "humane".

In fact, we are told that the greatest threat to freedom ...is Christianity, ...and Capitalism!

Some would have us believe Judeo-Christian philosophy, indeed all of traditional Western culture, is "dangerous" and "racist" and "sexist" and "violent" and "intolerant"!

...Is it as dangerous , violent, and intolerant as such "humane and benign" SECULAR LEFTIST governments as the U.S.S.R., The "Peoples' Republic" of China, Cambodia (under Pol Pot), Veitnam, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, ...and Nazi Germany?

You will never hear a leftist shriek so hysterically as when you point out THE HISTORICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL FACT THAT NAZIISM AND COMMUNISM ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME SOCIALIST COIN.
I have thoroughly studied history for 22 years, and I realized this basic fact long ago. I have been searching for a book that specifically clarifies this issue, and this is it!

Mr. Goldberg gives us a thorough disection of the leftist poitical philosophy of the 20th century and its influence upon the contemporary liberal entities. The history is there, in most libraries, for anyone to read. Go to the library and see for yourself. As for informed debate on the matter, I find that the "well-read" liberal, has read a quantity of "liberal literature" ...and little else. They simply can't be troubled to study anything outside of their agenda-driven propaganda.

The world really is more complex than the perspective of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Guevara, and Margaret Sanger!

To the properly indoctrinated leftist, the ideology is FAR MORE IMPORTANT. The FACTS, if contrary ...are irrelevant!

Mr. Goldberg's book will be predictably reviled and denounced by all classes of leftist. But when confronted with skeptical rebuttal, the primary question will be: "Did you actually READ the book?"

Let us consider this:
The leftist can exist freely and openly under a Western capitalist government, and voice opposition to it.
If you voice opposition to a leftist secular government, you wind up in a concentration-camp ...and leave through the chimney.

I bought this book and read it because of the title and cover. I
believe this is the first time I've ever actually done this. I
believe the actual difference between all of these ideological terms
used throughout this book are:

Collectivist vs. Individualist.

First and foremost, I'll note that I'm mostly Libertarian. In books
of this genre reviewers should reveal their leanings and biases. So
yes, I have have a political preference - a political bias - like
most people that read these kinds of books.

The major point by Jonah Goldberg in this book is that Communism,
National Socialism, Fascism, and the American Left originate from
similar political theories and ideologies. Not only is this flawed
historical reasoning and analysis, but it's also deceptive and
unscrupulous. Goldberg knows what he's doing.

To start off with the title of this book: There is no "secret"
history of the Left in the United States. And I don't believe there
is a "secret" history of the Center or Right, either.

The title of the book incorrectly juxtaposes two political terms: 1)
liberal and 2) fascism.

"Mussolini" is in the title of this book. Mussolini was very open
and clear about the ideological and policy goals of the Italian
National Fascist Party, and he clearly stated and wrote numerous
times that Fascism is Corporatism, which is what Fascism is. The
corporation is a collective body or organization, that acts on the
interests of the whole, and not the individual. But it's controlled
by a few. Those in power. Look at American corporations today.
Therefore, according to Goldberg, the so-called Right-wing supporters
of Big Business are Fascists, as well as the Left.

The political terms "Left" and "Right" are archaic misnomers and have
been outdated since the late 1970s in the USA.

It is a fact that there is basically no American Left. Perhaps a
handful of Congressional representatives are on the Left. The only
Democratic Socialist is Bernie Sanders, (I) Senator, Vermont. His
committee assignments list him with the Democratic party. Sanders
votes with the Democrats, a primarily right-wing political party in
the United States.

Again, there is no Left in the United States.
Liberals in the USA are not on the left. They are Center.

The cover in itself is also disingenuous. The mustache on the smiley
face evokes the image of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism.
Holland and Sweden for example, are one of the most Left-Wing
Socialist countries on Earth. You will find the Dutch and Swedish to
be strongly against and opposed to National Socialism, Fascism, and
Marxism, Communism, Leninism, and Stalinism. Similar polling data exists in the United States.

Why are these two words in the title? To evoke false comparisons.

The "Left" has no relation to the current United States terms of
"Liberal, Liberalism, Conservatism, Neo-Conservatism, or
Neo-Liberalism."

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were/are both Neo-Liberals.

Franklin D. Roosevelt in an April 29, 1938 message to Congress warned
that the growth of private power could lead to fascism:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the
people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it
becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its
essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a
group, or by any other controlling private power.

As a Libertarian I see the author is really noting the historical
beliefs of "Collective" vs. "Individualist."

As a leaning Libertarian, I'm an Individualist.

This book is at best neocon rhetoric and at its worst, a shameless misrepresentation of the truth.

The irony of it all turns my stomach! I consider myself a true conservative, but these neocons like Goldberg that have overrun the Republican Party are the real fascists (authoritarianism + corporatism). If Goldberg had wanted to slander the Democratic Party, he could have just called them socialist (state ownership of industry + forced redistribution of wealth), but he chose to try and confuse the American people with disinformation and propaganda.

If you were unfortunate enough to buy the book, as I did, don't forget to recycle it! Maybe all of that wood pulp can be put to good use by someone else.

I don't want to be redundant because many of the reviews of this book are right on. But I did want to mention that finding this book in a brick and mortar book store was very difficult and I ended up ordering it online anyway.

This book is timely and relevant to the presidential election.

Wow. Heavy handed title for a narrow synopsis of the origins of modern American political thought. Essentially, somebody finally connected the dots and published what has been a recognised fact in academic circles for years in a format that the general public can access.
The title is, however, misleading.
Both American Conservatives and American Liberals have, within their parties, a basic connection to the social and philosophical movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from which have grown the recognizable political systems of the modern industrialized world.
Although other authors have covered similar ground before, this book is geared for the general reader and will not require a professor to explain it, simply a library card to research it. Read the book, take notes, research the notes and make up your own mind; pablum is for infants, Kool-Aid is for kids, and critical analysis should be implemented by adults.
Although furious debate has already sprung up over the book, the real questions concerning it's impact are the following two:
1) Will the people that won't buy this book, due to the title, read any of it objectively before heaping condemnation upon it?
2) Will the people who are gleefully buying it, for the title, read any of it with an open-mind before they blithely ignore it's implications and mis-quote it?

The entire basis of this book is the common conflation of Nazism of all forms of state agency. The author dos not only misunderstand Progressivism, he misunderstands the entire political spectrum. Unfortunately, this stems from the fact that he knows absolutely nothing about history, even though his argument is historical! It used to be that conservatives accused liberals of being communists; an accusation that stemmed from the same misunderstanding of history that Goldberg's argument stems from. Any political ideology, with the exception of extreme libertarianism or anarchism, can somehow be connected to some thinker or some statement that supported either the fascists or the communists in the early 20th century.

Its the same way people try to make a connection between evolutionary theory and eugenics. Some people, who by and large were not scientists, misappropriated the views of Darwin and applied them to human societies. Goldberg's argument follows the same line of reasoning - guilty by association. The same argument can be turned on conservatives - modern American conservatism has a very distinct connection to racist/segregationist policies in the American South. Trying to connect FDR ir Hillary Clinton to Hitler is a much further stretch of reasoning than drawing an ideological comparison between Ronald Regean and the KKK.

By the way, this guy was embarassed on the Daily Show. He couldn't defend (or even remember) some of the main arguments of his book. He then tried to say that organic foods represent fascist ideology (referring to the fascist concept of organic nationalism). What a joke

The fact that a "Washington Post" writer provides a very lengthy rebuttal...not commentary, that poorly masquerades as an offical Editorial Review in this listing, is quite telling. The many truths and rational connections Mr. Goldberg has provided in this expose have rubbed more than a few nerves.

Many of extreme left vs. right, right vs. left books on the market represent nothing more than self-indulgent "tirads on parchment."
This book is different. It is relatively well researched. You will not be able it down.

Highly recommended.

'Overreaching' is the adjective that is most appropriate for this muddled mess of a book, obviously written to cash in with the 'I'd believe anything' right-wing crowd. Even readers with a minimal elementary school education should be able to see the fallacies, distortions, and numerous factual errors in the text. I used to have some respect for Mr Goldberg until I picked up this book, but now I wonder if he is attempting to pick up the mantle from the even more demented Ann Coulter. This mess of the historical record makes makes me ashamed to call myself a conservative. However, I truly would like to know exactly what Mr Goldberg is smoking. I'd like some of it.

Golberg's argument is: (a) some liberals supported Moussolini's fascist Italty during the 20s and 30s; (b) Fasists themselves claimed at the time Fascism is "progressive" in the sense of wanting more government control of the economy and society and in being the "government of the future"; (c) both fascists and liberals were influenced by certain philosophers and thinkers. Therefore, argues Goldberg, (d) progressive liberals are fascists.

This type of argument is known as a "non sequitor": "it does not follow". Goldberg's premises *are* true, of course, but the conclusion still isn't true. The reason is obvious: agreeing with Mussolini, or even with Hitler, on *some* things doesn't mean one agrees with them about *everything*. It surely does not mean one agrees with them on those issues that made really makes them fascists.

For example, Mussolini and modern liberals both agree a strong intervention of the government in the economy is a good idea. But they disagree on the need for a one-party state or the supression of the press. Hitler and modern liberals both agree that free-market capitalism has a downside; but they disagree on whether or not such capitalism is a jewish plot, to say nothing of the need to kill all jews to stop it.

Using Goldberg's "logic", one could just as easily prove that conservatives are all racists. Conservatives want a strong military; the Ku Klux Klan wants a strong military; therefore, the conservatives agree with the Ku Klux Klan. This, of course ignores conservatives *disagree* with the Klan precisely on the issue that *makes* the Klan racist--most conservatives don't think blacks are subhuman.

Because Goldberg's non-sequitors allows him to "prove" essentially anyone he dislikes is a "fascist", it is not surprising his list of "liberal fascists" is a mile long. The problem is, the list includes Woodrow Wilson, FDR (who saved the free world from Fascism in WWII), Bill Clinton, and others. Whatever their faults, if *these* people are "fascists", then the term loses all meaning.

Due to this central flaw, the book cannot be recommended. Still, it is not totally worthless. It *does* do some basic research reasonably well and *does* note that liberal progressive may *become* fascists if they take their views to extremes--though that is, of course, just as true for conservatives who take their views to extreme. But there are many other books that show this without falling for Golberg's preposterous thesis.

Reading this book will actually make you dumber. The author is using the old Ann Coulter formula: Shocking title, artwork that screams, and then bash the left with circumstantial evidence, red herrings, and logical leaps. If you don't believe me, try something simple. Grab a dictionary or get on to wikipedia. Look up "liberalism," then look up "fascism." The 2 terms are mutually exclusive. The title of this book is contradictory. If you enjoy this book, I am willing to bet you voted for W...twice, and you have trouble spelling any word that contains more than one syllable. This author is banking on the fact that his audience is uninformed and gullible. Seeing that this book is averaging 4 stars, I would say "spot on!"

In a 'Salon' interview, Jonah Goldberg described his book, 'Liberal Fascism' as revisionism; thus to Goldberg, revisionism is truth. This is the same as saying that Freedom is Slavery, or that Ignorance is Strength.

Goldberg also lied about his being a neo-liberal. He is absolutely a neo-conservative.

The Right-wing-Lie which Goldberg and other conservatives spread, that Hitler was a Socialist or a Leftist is Orwellian doublethink. The truth is that Hitler believed that Socialism was a Right-wing ideology and that communist Jews had falsified Socialism into the opposite of Nationalism.

Munich speech April 12th, 1922

1. 'NATIONAL' AND 'SOCIAL' ARE TWO IDENTICAL CONCEPTIONS. It was only the Jew who succeeded, through falsifying the social idea and turning it into Marxism, not only in divorcing the social idea from the national, but in actually representing them as utterly contradictory. That aim he has in fact achieved. At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision that we would give expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of what we had come to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it ''National Socialist.' We said to ourselves that to be 'national' means above everything to act with a boundless and all-embracing love for the people and, if necessary, even to die for it. And similarly to be 'social' means so to build up the state and the community of the people that every individual acts in the interest of the community of the people and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die for it.

Goldberg's book wanders from time to time and there are parts that are hard to follow because of this. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book. Goldberg correctly identifies fascism as a left wing movement, a fact that most do not seem to recognize. He exposes the continuity of thought from the so-called progressives a century ago to the so-called progressives today. While identifying similarities between fascism over the last 100 years and today's liberals, he takes pains to insist that he is not saying that today's liberals are just like Nazis (in contrast to some of the other reviews you may read). This is a thought-provoking and enlightening book. Hopefully the skeptical will be motivated to learn the truth.

Don't get caught up in the title