Giovanni Gentile

Book excerpt: At the polemical level, fascism has become a generic term applied to virtually any form of real or potential violence, while among Marxist and left-wing scholars discredited interpretations of fascism as a product of late capitalism have been revived. But these formulas disregard the historical and philosophical roots of fascism as it arose in Italy and spread throughout Europe. In Giovanni Gentile, Gregor returns to those roots by examining the thought of Gentile, Italian Fascisms major theorist.