The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA

From the 1920s to the 1940s, Europe experienced, in varying degrees, the rise of fascism and authoritarian movements. The horror of the Holocaust, concentration camps and World War 2 tended to de-legitimate Mazism, fascism and fellow travellers. Nevertheless, postwar Europe and the USA have witnessed the sporadic uneven growth of extreme right forms. In common with other political labels the right can be elusive and incorporates "fuzzy" edges. The purpose of this book is to examine the conceptualization and prevalence of the postwar extreme Right in a comparative framework. The lengthy introduction discusses the concept of extreme Rightism while the country-by-country chapters illustrate the unevenness of extreme Right-wing growth and the specific political culture. The degree to which certain ideas are particular to extreme Right origins and where they overlap with traditional democracy, intense nationalism, mistrust of immigrants, racism, anti-semitism, socio-biological elitism, adulation of the family, scapegoat-seeking and conspiracy theory. This study also documents the composition, structure and size of the various movements.
The final chapter is an evaluation of the nature and influence of the extreme Right in the postwar context.