The Fascist Effect

Research on fascism internationally and nationally (with perhaps four exceptions: Germany, Austria, Portugal and Norway) is often the output of single scholars working in isolation. This is the result of the merit systems of many universities, and also of the lack of public funding—perhaps, also, the ambitions and ideas of those interested in the study of fascism. The consequence of this situation is that we are left, in the main, with studies of one fascist party, one fascist personality, one study of fascist ideology, produced by single individuals. Hope for real theoretical progress is therefore very different from that in other branches of scholarship today. This statement is not meant to belittle the studies published in this numerically large field of publication. One very good example is the present book by Reto Hofmann. In this, he analyses the important topic of how Japan was influenced particularly by Mussolini’s politics and ideas. The book comprises five chapters, ending with an epilogue in which he sums up the cause of Japanese fascism through to the defeat in the Second World War, when the judgement on Japanese fascism was passed by the international military tribunal convened by the victors. The author ends these reflections by returning to an individual he described and analysed in his first chapter, Shimoi Harukici, who escaped trial and prison, but was left with a bitter illusion of Japan’s having failed to take advantage of the golden opportunity to become a strong national, authoritarian (and fascist?) state

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Economic history · Ideology · Judgement · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Sociology · State (computer science · Classics · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law