This book develops a number of new conceptual tools to tackle some of the most hotly debated issues concerning the nature of fascism, using three profoundly different national contexts in the inter-war years as case studies: Italy, Britain and Norway. It explores how fascist ideology was the result of a sustained struggle between competing internal factions, which created a precarious, but also highly dynamic, balance between revolutionary/totalitarian and conservative/authoritarian tendencies. Such a balance meant that these movements were hybrids with a surprising degree of internal diversity, which cannot be explained away as simple opportunism or lack of ideological substance. The book's focus on fascist ideology's internal variety and aggregative potential leads it to argue that when fascism "succeeded," this was less an effect of its revolutionary ideas, than of the opposite - namely, its power to integrate elements from other pre-existing ideologies. Given the prevailing opinion that fascism is revolutionary by definition, the book ultimately poses a challenge to the dominant view in the field of fascist studies.

This book develops a number of new conceptual tools to tackle some of the most hotly debated issues concerning the nature of fascism, using three profoundly different national contexts in the inter-war years as case studies: Italy, Britain and Norway. It explores how fascist ideology was the result of a sustained struggle between competing internal factions, which created a precarious, but also highly dynamic, balance between revolutionary/totalitarian and conservative/authoritarian tendencies. Such a balance meant that these movements were hybrids with a surprising degree of internal diversity, which cannot be explained away as simple opportunism or lack of ideological substance. The book's focus on fascist ideology's internal variety and aggregative potential leads it to argue that when fascism "succeeded," this was less an effect of its revolutionary ideas, than of the opposite - namely, its power to integrate elements from other pre-existing ideologies. Given the prevailing opinion that fascism is revolutionary by definition, the book ultimately poses a challenge to the dominant view in the field of fascist studies.

Interwar European fascism is inextricably associated with anti-semitism - and, in particular, the destructive racial ideology and policies of the Nazis. Certainly, as the period progressed, anti-semitism did become an increasingly integral ideological component for European fascist movements, with Italy and Britain as distinctive examples of this phenomenon. But the main fascist parties in both countries were founded with no anti-Jewish agenda, before progressively incorporating anti-semitism as official policy. Moving away from the standard Nazi paradigm, this book explores the factors behind fascism's adoption and use of anti-semitism, the varying forms that it took, and the ways in which it evolved. Similarly, the exploration of the Jewish relationship with fascism has been dominated by German, Nazi, and Holocaust history. Yet Jews undertook a far wider range of interactions with this political creed, ranging from membership of fascist organizations to influential involvement in anti-fascist movements. Through comparative examination of the Jewish communities in interwar Britain and Italy, this book unravels some of the complexities of Jewish attitudes towards, and experiences of, fascism.