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Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change Paperback – June 2, 2009

by Jonah Goldberg (Author)

1,487 ratings

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Fierce, funny, and controversial, Jonah Goldberg's #1 New York Times bestseller traces fascism back to its surprising roots--in liberalism.

“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?

Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.

Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.

Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.

Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. 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.

These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Brilliant, insightful, and important.” —New York Sun

“Well-researched, seriously argued, and funny.” —Publishers Weekly“Bold and witty… [Goldberg] makes a persuasive case that fascism was from the beginning a movement of the left.” —New York Post“Jonah Goldberg is the first historian to detail the havoc this spin of all spins has played upon Western thought for the past seventy-five years, very much including the present moment.” —Tom Wolfe

About the Author

JONAH GOLDBERG is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and contributing editor to National Review. A USA Today contributor and former columnist for the Times of London, he has also written for The New Yorker, Commentary, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

* 1 *
Mussolini:
The Father of Fascism

You’re the top!
You’re the Great Houdini!
You’re the top!
You are Mussolini!
—An early version of the Cole Porter song “You’re the Top” (1)

IF YOU WENT solely by what you read in the New York Times or the New York Review of Books, or what you learned from Hollywood, you could be forgiven for thinking that Benito Mussolini came to power around the same time as Adolf Hitler—or even a little bit later—and that Italian Fascism was merely a tardy, watered–down version of Nazism. Germany passed its hateful race policies—the Nuremberg Laws—in 1935, and Mussolini’s Italy followed suit in 1938. German Jews were rounded up in 1942, and Jews in Italy were rounded up in 1943. A few writers will casually mention, in parenthetical asides, that until Italy passed its race laws there were actually Jews serving in the Italian government and the Fascist Party. And on occasion you’ll notice a nod to historical accuracy indicating that the Jews were rounded up only after the Nazis had invaded northern Italy and created a puppet government in Salo. But such inconvenient facts are usually skipped over as quickly as possible. More likely, your understanding of these issues comes from such sources as the Oscar–winning film Life Is Beautiful, (2) which can be summarized as follows: Fascism arrived in Italy and, a few months later, so did the Nazis, who carted off the Jews. As for Mussolini, he was a bombastic, goofy–looking, but highly effective dictator who made the trains run on time.

All of this amounts to playing the movie backward. By the time Italy reluctantly passed its shameful race laws—which it never enforced with even a fraction of the barbarity shown by the Nazis—over 75 percent of Italian Fascism’s reign had already transpired. A full sixteen years elapsed between the March on Rome and the passage of Italy's race laws. To start with the Jews when talking about Mussolini is like starting with FDR’s internment of the Japanese: it leaves a lot of the story on the cutting room floor. Throughout the 1920s and well into the 1930s, fascism meant something very different from Auschwitz and Nuremberg. Before Hitler, in fact, it never occurred to anyone that fascism had anything to do with anti–Semitism. Indeed, Mussolini was supported not only by the chief rabbi of Rome but by a substantial portion of the Italian Jewish community (and the world Jewish community). Moreover, Jews were overrepresented in the Italian Fascist movement from its founding in 1919 until they were kicked out in 1938.

Race did help turn the tables of American public opinion on Fascism. But it had nothing to do with the Jews. When Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, Americans finally started to turn on him. In 1934 the hit Cole Porter song “You’re the Top” engendered nary a word of controversy over the line “You are Mussolini!” When Mussolini invaded that poor but noble African kingdom the following year, it irrevocably marred his image, and Americans decided they had had enough of his act. It was the first war of conquest by a Western European nation in over a decade, and Americans were distinctly unamused, particularly liberals and blacks. Still, it was a slow process. The Chicago Tribune initially supported the invasion, as did reporters like Herbert Matthews. Others claimed it would be hypocritical to condemn it. The New Republic—then in the thick of its pro–Soviet phase—believed it would be “naive” to blame Mussolini when the real culprit was international capitalism. And more than a few prominent Americans continued to support him, although quietly. The poet Wallace Stevens, for example, stayed pro–Fascist. “I am pro–Mussolini, personally,” he wrote to a friend. “The Italians,” he explained, “have as much right to take Ethiopia from the coons as the coons had to take it from the boa–constrictors.” (3) But over time, largely due to his subsequent alliance with Hitler, Mussolini’s image never recovered.

That's not to say he didn't have a good ride.

In 1923 the journalist Isaac F. Marcosson wrote admiringly in the New York Times that “Mussolini is a Latin [Teddy] Roosevelt who first acts and then inquires if it is legal. He has been of great service to Italy at home.” (4) The American Legion, which has been for nearly its entire history a great and generous American institution, was founded the same year as Mussolini’s takeover and, in its early years, drew inspiration from the Italian Fascist movement. “Do not forget,” the legion’s national commander declared that same year, “that the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States.” (5)

In 1926 the American humorist Will Rogers visited Italy and interviewed Mussolini. He told the New York Times that Mussolini was “some Wop.” “I’m pretty high on that bird.” Rogers, whom the National Press Club had informally dubbed “Ambassador–at–Large of the United States,” wrote up the interview for the Saturday Evening Post. He concluded, “Dictator form of government is the greatest form of government: that is if you have the right Dictator.” (6) In 1927 the Literary Digest conducted an editorial survey asking the question: “Is there a dearth of great men?” The person named most often to refute the charge was Benito Mussolini—followed by Lenin, Edison, Marconi, and Orville Wright, with Henry Ford and George Bernard Shaw tying for sixth place. In 1928 the Saturday Evening Post glorified Mussolini even further, running an eight–part autobiography written by Il Duce himself. The series was gussied up into a book that gained one of the biggest advances ever given by an American publisher.

And why shouldn’t the average American think Mussolini was anything but a great man? Winston Churchill had dubbed him the world’s greatest living lawgiver. Sigmund Freud sent Mussolini a copy of a book he co–wrote with Albert Einstein, inscribed, “To Benito Mussolini, from an old man who greets in the Ruler, the Hero of Culture.” The opera titans Giacomo Puccini and Arturo Toscanini were both pioneering Fascist acolytes of Mussolini. Toscanini was an early member of the Milan circle of Fascists, which conferred an aura of seniority not unlike being a member of the Nazi Party in the days of the Beer Hall Putsch. Toscanini ran for the Italian parliament on a Fascist ticket in 1919 and didn’t repudiate Fascism until twelve years later. (7)

Mussolini was a particular hero to the muckrakers—those progressive liberal journalists who famously looked out for the little guy. When Ida Tarbell, the famed reporter whose work helped break up Standard Oil, was sent to Italy in 1926 by McCall’s to write a series on the Fascist nation, the U.S. State Department feared that this “pretty red radical” would write nothing but “violent anti–Mussolini articles.” Their fears were misplaced. Tarbell was wooed by the man she called “a despot with a dimple,” praising his progressive attitude toward labor. Similarly smitten was Lincoln Steffens, another famous muckraker, who is today perhaps dimly remembered for being the man who returned from the Soviet Union declaring, “I have been over into the future, and it works.” Shortly after that declaration, he made another about Mussolini: God had “formed Mussolini out of the rib of Italy.” As we’ll see, Steffens saw no contradiction between his fondness for Fascism and his admiration of the Soviet Union. Even Samuel McClure, the founder of McClure’s Magazine, the home of so much famous muckraking, championed Fascism after visiting Italy. He hailed it as “a great step forward and the first new ideal in government since the founding of the American Republic.” (8)

Meanwhile, almost all of Italy’s most famous and admired young intellectuals and artists were Fascists or Fascist sympathizers (the most notable exception was the literary critic Benedetto Croce). Giovanni Papini, the “magical pragmatist” so admired by William James, was deeply involved in the various intellectual movements that created Fascism. Papini’s Life of Christ—a turbulent, almost hysterical tour de force chronicling his acceptance of Christianity—caused a sensation in the United States in the early 1920s. Giuseppe Prezzolini, a frequent contributor to the New Republic who would one day become a respected professor at Columbia University, was one of Fascism’s earliest literary and ideological architects. F. T. Marinetti, the founder of the Futurist movement—which in America was seen as an artistic companion to Cubism and Expressionism—was instrumental in making Italian Fascism the world's first successful “youth movement.” America's education establishment was keenly interested in Italy’s “breakthroughs” under the famed “schoolmaster” Benito Mussolini, who, after all, had once been a teacher.

Perhaps no elite institution in America was more accommodating to Fascism than Columbia University. In 1926 it established Casa Italiana, a center for the study of Italian culture and a lecture venue for prominent Italian scholars. It was Fascism’s “veritable home in America” and a “schoolhouse for budding Fascist ideologues,” according to John Patrick Diggins. Mussolini himself had contributed some ornate Baroque furniture to Casa Italiana and had sent Columbia’s president, Nicholas Murray Butler, a signed photo thanking him for his “most valuable contribution” to the promotion of understanding between Fascist Italy and the United States. (9) Butler himself was not an advocate of fascism for America, but he did believe it was in the best interests of the Italian people and that it had been a very real success, well worth studying. This subtle distinction—fascism is good for Italians, but maybe not for America—was held by a vast array of prominent liberal intellectuals in much the same way some liberals defend Castro’s communist “experiment.”

While academics debated the finer points of Mussolini’s corporatist state, mainstream America’s interest in Mussolini far outstripped that of any other international figure in the 1920s. From 1925 to 1928 there were more than a hundred articles written on Mussolini in American publications and only fifteen on Stalin. (10) For more than a decade the New York Times’s foreign correspondent Anne O’Hare McCormick painted a glowing picture of Mussolini that made the Times’s later fawning over Stalin seem almost critical. The New York Tribune was vexed to answer the question: Was Mussolini Garibaldi or Caesar? Meanwhile, James A. Farrell, the head of U.S. Steel, dubbed the Italian dictator “the greatest living man” in the world.

Hollywood moguls, noting his obvious theatrical gifts, hoped to make Mussolini a star of the big screen, and he appeared in The Eternal City (1923), starring Lionel Barrymore. The film recounts the battles between communists and Fascists for control of Italy, and—mirabile dictu—Hollywood takes the side of the Fascists. “His deportment on the screen,” one reviewer proclaimed, “lends weight to the theory that this is just where he belongs.” (11) In 1933 Columbia Pictures released a “documentary” called Mussolini Speaks—supervised by Il Duce himself. Lowell Thomas—the legendary American journalist who had made Lawrence of Arabia famous—worked closely on the film and provided fawning commentary throughout. Mussolini was portrayed as a heroic strongman and national savior. When the crescendo builds before Mussolini gives a speech in Naples, Thomas declares breathlessly, “This is his supreme moment. He stands like a modern Caesar!” The film opened to record business at the RKO Palace in New York. Columbia took out an ad in Variety proclaiming the film a hit in giant block letters because “it appeals to all RED BLOODED AMERICANS” and “it might be the ANSWER TO AMERICA'S NEEDS.”

Fascism certainly had its critics in the 1920s and 1930s. Ernest Hemingway was skeptical of Mussolini almost from the start. Henry Miller disliked Fascism’s program but admired Mussolini’s will and strength. Some on the so–called Old Right, like the libertarian Albert J. Nock, saw Fascism as just another kind of statism. The nativist Ku Klux Klan—ironically, often called “American fascists” by liberals—tended to despise Mussolini and his American followers (mainly because they were immigrants). Interestingly, the hard left had almost nothing to say about Italian Fascism for most of its first decade. While liberals were split into various unstable factions, the American left remained largely oblivious to Fascism until the Great Depression. When the left did finally start attacking Mussolini in earnest—largely on orders from Moscow—they lumped him in essentially the same category as Franklin Roosevelt, the socialist Norman Thomas, and the progressive Robert La Follette. (12)

We’ll be revisiting how American liberals and leftists viewed Fascism in subsequent chapters. But first it seems worth asking, how was this possible? Given everything we’ve been taught about the evils of fascism, how is it that for more than a decade this country was in significant respects pro–fascist? Even more vexing, how is it—considering that most liberals and leftists believe they were put on this earth to oppose fascism with every breath—that many if not most American liberals either admired Mussolini and his project or simply didn’t care much about it one way or the other?

The answer resides in the fact that Fascism was born of a “fascist moment” in Western civilization, when a coalition of intellectuals going by various labels—progressive, communist, socialist, and so forth—believed the era of liberal democracy was drawing to a close. It was time for man to lay aside the anachronisms of natural law, traditional religion, constitutional liberty, capitalism, and the like and rise to the responsibility of remaking the world in his own image. God was long dead, and it was long overdue for men to take His place. Mussolini, a lifelong socialist intellectual, was a warrior in this crusade, and his Fascism—a doctrine he created from the same intellectual material Lenin and Trotsky had built their movements with—was a grand leap into the era of “experimentation” that would sweep aside old dogmas and usher in a new age. This was in every significant way a project of the left as we understand the term today, a fact understood by Mussolini, his admirers, and his detractors. Mussolini declared often that the nineteenth century was the century of liberalism and the twentieth century would be the “century of Fascism.” It is only by examining his life and legacy that we can see how right—and left—he was.

* * *

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was named after three revolutionary heroes. The name Benito—a Spanish name, as opposed to the Italian equivalent, Benedetto—was inspired by Benito Juárez, the Mexican revolutionary turned president who not only toppled the emperor Maximilian but had him executed. The other two names were inspired by now-forgotten heroes of anarchist–socialism, Amilcare Cipriani and Andrea Costa.

Mussolini’s father, Alessandro, was a blacksmith and ardent socialist with an anarchist bent who was a member of the First International along with Marx and Engels and served on the local socialist council. Alessandro’s “[h]eart and mind were always filled and pulsing with socialistic theories,” Mussolini recalled. “His intense sympathies mingled with [socialist] doctrines and causes. He discussed them in the evening with his friends and his eyes filled with light.” (13) On other nights Mussolini's father read him passages from Das Kapital. When villagers brought their horses to Alessandro’s shop to be shod, part of the price came in the form of listening to the blacksmith spout his socialist theories. Mussolini was a congenital rabble–rouser. At the age of ten, young Benito led a demonstration against his school for serving bad food. In high school he called himself a socialist, and at the age of eighteen, while working as a substitute teacher, he became the secretary of a socialist organization and began his career as a left–wing journalist.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ PRH Christian Publishing; First Edition (June 2, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0767917189
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0767917186
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.19 x 1.28 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #215,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #63 in Fascism (Books)
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- #614 in History & Theory of Politics

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Jonah Goldberg

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JONAH GOLDBERG is the Asness Chair in Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute and is a Senior Editor at National Review. A best-selling author, his nationally syndicated column appears regularly in over a hundred newspapers across the United States. He is also a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a member of the board of contributors to USA Today, a Fox News contributor, and a regular member of the “Fox News All-Stars” on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

He was the founding editor of National Review Online. The Atlantic magazine has identified Goldberg as one of the top 50 political commentators in America. Among his awards, in 2011 he was named the Robert J. Novak Journalist of the Year at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He has written on politics, media, and culture for a wide variety of leading publications and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs. He is the author of the forthcoming "Suicide of the West" (Crown Forum, 2018), as well as two New York Times bestsellers: “The Tyranny of Clichés” (Sentinel HC, 2012) and “Liberal Fascism” (Doubleday, 2008).

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Customers find the book highly informative and well-documented, serving as a good introduction to the history of fascism. Moreover, they appreciate its readability, informative writing style, and edgy humor. Additionally, the book receives positive feedback for its sturdiness and serious pacing. However, customers disagree on the book's effectiveness, with some finding it useful while others consider it useless.

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251 customers mention "Information quality"235 positive16 negative

Customers praise the book's information quality, describing it as a serious scholarly work that is well-documented and serves as a good introduction to the history of fascism.

"...My hope is this book will help in laying the leftist myth that the Nazis/Fascists were conservatives to rest...." Read more

"...This is a serious scholarly work, and it deserves to be read and judged as such. Goldberg is attempting to right a historical injustice...." Read more

"...The right believes in rewarding hard work, and encouraging entrepreneurial enterprise, not penalizing success with high taxes and redistributing..." Read more

"...but to the greater waves of History. This book digs deep...." Read more

171 customers mention "Readability"168 positive3 negative

Customers find the book readable and thoroughly enjoyable, with one customer noting it is well-researched.

"...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." Read more

"This extraordinary book offers the most complete and well researched history of Fascism over the past century and into the present day...." Read more

"...More like a classic work of literature that is kind of boring to read, but which exactly because it's not propagandistic or overly emotional, is one..." Read more

"...The best chapter in the book is probably that on the 1960s counterculture youth movements, which had much in common with classical fascism in terms..." Read more

109 customers mention "Readable"90 positive19 negative

Customers find the book well-written and informative, with one customer noting it is fastidiously researched and historically accurate.

"...I find his conversational and somewhat informal style to be witty and readable...." Read more

"...kind of boring to read, but which exactly because it's not propagandistic or overly emotional, is one of the few books that made me realize what the..." Read more

"...I love this book and think it should be required reading for every high school and college student in the United States...." Read more

"...I is pretty much written to the choir. It goes into depth to show many of the similarities of modern liberalism and fascists...." Read more

14 customers mention "Humor"14 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's edgy humor and interesting writing style, with one customer noting its masterful use of left-wing rhetoric.

"...I find his conversational and somewhat informal style to be witty and readable...." Read more

"...His chapters on the Clintons have lots of tweaks and chuckles...." Read more

"...Goldberg's is sometimes worrisome, scary, humorous, and hopeful...." Read more

"...essence of all of these approaches is a totalitarian, utopian and well-meaning, but ultimately deeply flawed vision of the relationship between..." Read more

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"...for the last few years since this book is a goldmine of wonderfully researced material about fascism vs. communism, which really is the same..." Read more

"...It is not. It is a well-sourced and thoughtful work about the basic error in thinking about political philosophy as left-right...." Read more

"...Exceptionally well sourced and very well written. I've read this book twice and may do so a third time...." Read more

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Customers find the pacing of the book serious and frightening.

"...The book is both better and worse than I was expecting. It is more serious but more weakly argued. Narrower in scope but less focused...." Read more

"...Goldberg has produced a serious, well researched work that explores the thesis that is at once both obvious and rarely observed; that modern leftism/..." Read more

"This is a big book and can be a bit tedious in places...." Read more

"...Well written and interesting to read. Also scary. A clear look into parts of U.S. history a lot of people want forgotten." Read more

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Customers have mixed views on the book's treatment of fascism, with some noting that it equates fascism with leftism and emphasizes its connection to Nazism, while others find these aspects poorly explained.

"...Yes, it *does* over-simplify, over-generalize a *bit*, but that's the point, for otherwise it would be a mere random collection of RECENT history,..." Read more

"...and the common good over the individual, secularism, anti-Christian rhetoric and policies, anti-Church, anti-Monarchy, anti-traditional family values..." Read more

"...I see with the book are that it (1) straddles the worlds of intellectual history and political polemics and (2) resists using a working definition..." Read more

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"...The second problem--a failure to use a consistent working definition of fascism--leaves the book's purpose and line of argumentation shifting and at..." Read more

"...Goldberg's book is courageous and effective in outlining the true nature of fascism as the definition of the American Left since the early twentieth..." Read more

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The History Detective
The Fight Against the Leftist Historical Bias
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2008
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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.

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David McCune
"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made" - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2008
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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.

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Kindle Customer
Excellent book
Reviewed in Australia on June 26, 2018
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Enjoyed it all the way through. A brilliant and compelling political/historical/philosophical view on the development of the American left. Highly recommended. I need two more words to finish this review.

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Alpha Bet
Fascinating and revealing. This book is worth reading!
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2025
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Written by a respected reporter, this book reveals historical facts that I was never taught in school. Even though this book was published at least a decade ago, the facts have not changed, and it is still well worth reading. I highly recommend it.

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Mikenanoda
アメリカの共産主義者の実態を暴く
Reviewed in Japan on June 13, 2013
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そもそもフランクリンルーズベルトの閣僚に共産主義者でソ連のスパイが何人もいて、
政府職員を入れれば、1000人は下らないと言う容共、共産主義者かつソ連のスパイ
の実態を明らかにする、と同時に左翼、共産主義はファシズムに通ずることを
明確に説明する。
第2次世界大戦を、ファシズムグループと民主主義グループに分けて、
ソ連を仲間とし、援助するアメリカは善意変じて偏執狂の馬鹿としか思えない

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Juan
Recommended for everyone.
Reviewed in Spain on December 17, 2019
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Interesting book with many unknown facts silenced by the socialist academics and media.

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Humberto Sandmann
Excelente
Reviewed in Brazil on July 3, 2017
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Com referências bibliográficas, o autor apresenta um histórico do "movimento" liberal americano, inclusive sua tentativa de descolamento do rótulo de progressista, que agora volta com forma nas palavras de Clinton e Krugman.

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Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change Paperback – June 2, 2009

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5.0 out of 5 stars The Fight Against the Leftist Historical Bias

5.0 out of 5 stars "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made" - Franklin D. Roosevelt

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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and revealing. This book is worth reading!

5.0 out of 5 stars アメリカの共産主義者の実態を暴く

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for everyone.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente

The Fight Against the Leftist Historical Bias

"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made" - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Excellent book

Fascinating and revealing. This book is worth reading!

アメリカの共産主義者の実態を暴く

Recommended for everyone.

Excelente