Introducing Fascism: A Graphic Guide

I own several different entries in this series of graphic guides. While the graphics are almost always eye-catching and entertaining, the accompanying texts varies considerably in quality. In my view, this entry falls far below those on Shakespeare, The Enlightenment and Nietzsche,As I see it, this guide suffers from two flaws: 1). Most of the information here is on the level of factoids. 2) There does not seem to be any progression/development of the concepts presented.If you haven't read anything else about Fascism, then this may be a good place to start. It's pretty basic. Otherwise you might want to look into the series on Fascism posted online @ Slate a few months ago or perhaps check out the entry on Fascism in the Very Short Introduction Series.

Bought a different version in Europe about 15 years ago, great summary of the thinking behind fascism from the English perspective.

This book was written by a literal communist who’s bias makes this book more of an opinion piece. The author is Stuart Hood who was a member of multiple Communist parties in the UK, which accounts for his extreme hate for the Right in this book. I would not recommend this book at all if you want a non bias account of fascism.

Amazingly bad document. They don't even get the origin of the term fascism correctly, it comes from the fasces, a Roman symbol. It is an ax surrounded by 13 wood rods, representing the authority of the (Roman) state. I pushed past the author's incorrect etymology to see if the book would get better, but the author provides very little context to historic events that were associated with the rise of fascism during the 20th century and then he throws in unrelated statements and incidents seeing if it will stick. I was interested in reading several books in this series, but reading the glaring deficiencies in just the first 3rd of this book. I'm going to skip series.

Overall, the book has a very uneven feel to it. The written sections are well written, intelligent and factual, though containing only barebones details that would be more interesting if further elaborated on. Lots of space is given to mediocre cartoons which are neither especially interesting nor in keeping with the tone of the text, and act more as a distraction than a feature. I also have a problem with the lack of quotes and citations that should accompany certain assertions made (and in that regard it's inferior to a standard college paper). The illustrations feel like they're for teenagers, while the text sounds very grownup...so again, not sure who the target audience is. Maybe it's intended for people that have short attention spans?

The limited support of conclusions and a final jingoistic fascism checklist makes this a waste of time at best and dangerous and misleading for developing an understanding of the drivers of what leads to a right or left abuse of power at worst.

This book is filled with inaccuracies and obvious bias. Fascism isn't even defined correctly. This should be read as opinion, not history

This is a quick read with illustrations and therefore it's quite possibly one of the few written documents to spark Donald Trump's incurious mind. Even with his cognitive deficits, the illustrations may have been just the trick to lure him into some amount of familiarity with the content. All kidding aside, as one moves through this book the parallels to Trumpism (a/k/a Confident Stupidity) are jarring and all too real to dismiss. Judging by Trump's performance, this guide and Mein Kampf may constitute the entire substance of his "library."

Brilliant and simple explanation of what exactly is fascism and what isn't. There's a historical review of different countries where it gained control of the masses and how they were unique. Lastly it tells us why fascism can realistically come back any time.I recommend everyone should read it to know where we are in the world politics right now and how precisely is the process of fascism being replicated in all major countries.

A diferencia de otros volúmenes de esta colección que en general están muy bien, no puedo decir lo mismo de éste. No es una obra ecuánime y está claramente sesgado. Al final de la obra, los propios autores confiesan sus ideologías políticas. Me esperaba un texto más riguroso.

A very good history of world fascism over the 20th century, and how certain key factors cause fascist politics to thrive, handy for noting down the signs so that you can be out of the country before the readers of the daily mail take over.