History
Fascism has a history: a beginning, a spread, a catastrophe, and a long tail. The definitions on this site were all built from this record, and every contemporary argument about the word is, underneath, an argument about how far this record travels.
In this section
- Origins: the pre-1919 intellectual roots.
- Italy: the original, 1919 to 1945.
- Germany: National Socialism as a variant, and the debate about whether it is one.
- The spread: interwar Europe.
- Beyond Europe: Brazil, Japan, China, South Africa, and elsewhere.
- Defeat: 1943 to 1945, and what the defeat did and did not end.
- The postwar tail: neo-fascism, revisionism, and the lineages that persist.
The regime catalog and movements catalog hold the case-by-case detail; these pages hold the narrative that connects them.