100 Best Fascism Books of All Time

Ruth Ben-GhiatPaxton set out to look at what fascists do, not what they say. He’s very good at mapping the geography of power, and what I call the ‘authoritarian bargains’ among groups, parties, organs of the state and leaders. (Source)

George SaundersPlease read this book. So smart, so timely. (Source)

Tom Holland"There isn’t a page of this magnificent book that does not contain some fascinating detail and the narrative is held together with a novelist’s eye for character and theme." #Dominion https://t.co/FESSNxVDLC (Source)

Maya WileyProf. Tim Snyder, author of “In Tyranny” reminded us in that important little book that we must protect our institutions. #DOJ is one of our most important in gov’t for the rule of law. This is our collective house & #Barr should be evicted. https://t.co/PPxM9IMQUm (Source)

Brad FeldAmy and I have been fortunate enough to get to know Madeleine Albright through our collective relationships at Wellesley. Amy knows her better, but I had an amazing dinner sitting next to her one night where I walked away thinking “I wish she had been born here so she could run for president.” The word “fascism” is once again being used so often as to mean nothing, so Albright spends 250 or so... (Source)

Richard BransonToday is World Book Day, a wonderful opportunity to address this #ChallengeRichard sent in by Mike Gonzalez of New Jersey: Make a list of your top 65 books to read in a lifetime. (Source)

Steve Jobscalled this book "one of his favorite" and recommended it to the hires. The book also inspired one the greatest TV ad (made by Jobs) (Source)

D J TaylorIn terms of how technology is working in our modern surveillance powers, it’s a terrifyingly prophetic book in some of its implications for 21st-century human life. Orwell would deny that it was prophecy; he said it was a warning. But in fact, distinguished Orwell scholar Professor Peter Davis once made a list of all the things that Orwell got right, and it was a couple of fairly long paragraphs,... (Source)

Ruth Ben-GhiatHer most useful (and her most chilling) conclusion for today is that totalitarian tools were not specific to Nazism or Stalinism or any ideology. Arendt’s words should be studied today by those who want to prevent the further spread of authoritarian regimes and the ideologies they are propagating. (Source)

Barack ObamaAs 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018... (Source)

Michael McfaulNothing more I’d rather have than a book endorsement from @SteveKerr ! And it is a great book. https://t.co/i9XCw5H9YX (Source)

Steve KerrAdd this to your summer reading list. Great book. https://t.co/5OFnC2vskM (Source)

Eric Weinstein[Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

Antony BeevorThis book is about…the Stalinist repression of the areas known as the borderlands, which Snyder has termed the bloodlands. Snyder is looking at the deliberate mass murder of civilians in a particular zone of Europe between about 1930, at the start of the second Ukraine famine, and 1945. (Source)

Edward LucasBloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin offers the best account of the most important and terrible years of the last century, when Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler jointly consigned the territories and people between their two empires to the meat-grinder. (Source)

Timothy SnyderThe reason why I am so fond of Homage to Catalonia, and see it as an even more relevant precursor to dissent, is that in it you can see a man of the Left learning to make the distinction that breaks down the Left with a big L into lots of little lefts. He comes to understand what Soviet power actually is, and that it is qualitatively different to the other sorts of Spanish left, or to European... (Source)

Ben ShapiroA lot of people have read Orwell's 1984, he actually wrote a book that's better. It's [this book]. (Source)

Timothy Garton AshAnyone who wants to go off and write about Egypt, Tunisia or Libya today should pack a copy of Homage to Catalonia. It’s brilliant reportage. As you know, it opens with a vignette of an Italian militiaman in the barracks in Barcelona and he only saw this guy for a few moments but it captures the excitement. (Source)

Yuval Noah HarariThe most prophetic book of the 20th century. Today many people would easily mistake it for a utopia. (Source)

Ellen Wayland-SmithIt is a hilarious, and also very prescient, parody of utopias. Huxley goes back to the idea that coming together and forming a community of common interests is a great idea – it’s the basis of civil society. At the same time, when communities of common interests are taken to utopian degrees the self starts to dissolve into the larger community, you lose privacy and interiority; that becomes... (Source)

John QuigginThe lesson I draw from this is that the purpose of utopia is not so much as an achieved state, as to give people the freedom to pursue their own projects. That freedom requires that people are free of the fear of unemployment, or of financial disaster through poor healthcare. They should be free to have access to the kind of resources they need for their education and we should maintain and... (Source)

Nate Bowling (Is Thankful For A/c)@Sifill_LDF @soledadobrien The first and best Philip Roth book I read was called "The Plot Against America." It's wild as hell to watch it unfold IRL. https://t.co/ZWLkHjs5a2 https://t.co/shcD2kJ3Zi (Source)

Steven AmsterdamThe best way to tell stories of horrific times is not through the central players amassing power, but through the lives of the people off to the side, simply trying to survive. (Source)

Sam BourneRoth’s what if? in this book is imagining that Roosevelt is no longer president, and Charles Lindbergh, an isolationist and anti-war politician, is president instead. So the idea is, What if America had stayed out of the war and was morally on the wrong side? (Source)

Gunhee ParkA few months back, I read a book called A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II that led me to want to learn more about Nazi Germany and Hitler, so I then picked up The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which led me to wanting to learn more about Winston Churchill. (Source)

Whitney Cummings[Whitney Cummings recommended this book on the podcast "The Tim Ferriss Show".] (Source)

Vlad TenevWhen I was in sixth grade I remember being very upset by the ending of [this book]. (Source)

Sol OrwellQuestion: What books had the biggest impact on you? Perhaps changed the way you see things or dramatically changed your career path. Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 (though Huxley's Brave New World is a better reflection of today's society). (Source)

Boris StarlingV for Vendetta is a graphic novel set in a future, fascist Britain. It mirrors 1984 in some ways. The fascists are called Norsefire. (Source)

Evan GoldbergI often give [this book] to people. (Source)

Grady BoochI read this several years ago but — much like Orwell’s 1984 — it seems particularly relevant given our current political morass. (Source)

Cliff Bleszinski@HandmaidsOnHulu Done. Love the show, book is a classic, can't wait for season 2. (Source)

Jason Kottke@procload Not super necessary, since you've seen the TV show. This first book is still a great read though...different than the show (tone-wise more than plot-wise). (Source)

Dr. Phil Zimbardo[Talks] about Eichmann as illustrating the banality of evil. (Source)

Lucas MoralesI was introduced to the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt via Ian Shapiro’s Yale Open Courseware course The Moral Foundations of Political Science. This dramatically changed my outlook on the usual career path for graduates from my university that predominantly went into the defence industry. I am now perhaps overly conscious (maybe to a fault) that... (Source)

David BellPolitical philosopher Arendt sees the work of the Nazis as the inevitable result of colonialism and industrialisation. (Source)

Susan BordoIt’s about the Holocaust. It’s also a comic book, in which the various characters are depicted as animals – the Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats. (Source)

Daniel PickOne of his key suggestions is that sexuality and politics could be bound together in complex and often disguised ways, and that a huge amount of libido was directed or, as he would have seen it, horrifically misdirected into fascism. Something was “played out” in politics that had to do with very deep frustrations. I think Reich had a strong belief that sexual liberation might lead to greater... (Source)

Donté Stallworth@JordanUhl this book is almost 13 years old, but it’s never been more important than right now. the clairvoyance of @ChrisLynnHedges in this book is amazing (Source)

Clancy Brown@theBrianBurgess I have not read anything by John Steakley. I have read Robert Heinlein's book STARSHIP TROOPERS which is the book the movie is based upon. I recommend that one to you and, if you like future-war stories, FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman is one of the best. (Source)

Daniel H WilsonThis is a story of war in the future with advanced weaponry against aliens. This story is so grounded, and so realistic – the way that the characters interact, their language, their lingo, the way the military is set up, the way they utilise their weaponry – everything is just pitch perfect. When you read it, you pretty quickly find – at least I did – that you aren’t worried that it is science... (Source)

Ryan HolidayIf you want to be scared about the next four years, pick up Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here (because, well, it may have just happened here). (Source)

Eric Weinstein[Eric Weinstein recommended this book on Twitter.] (Source)

George RavelingThis, to me, is one of the true classics of all time. (Source)

Jessica SternThis is a brilliant book. Hoffer points out that zealots can be attracted to zealotry itself. Leaders of revolutionary movements go after people who are so dissatisfied with the status quo, and with themselves, that they are willing to put everything at risk, to create a new, better, purer world. The trick is to provide them with an identity as part of something bigger than themselves. One of the... (Source)

Johanna ReissElie Wiesel wrote..that he was considering running into the barbed wire once, but he didn’t because his father needed him. (Source)

Steven KatzProbably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. (Source)

Lydia RufflesThe (Source)

Steve Schmidt@egayle333 Ellyn, with respect Hitler was always clear about his intent. A great book to read from a US perspective is In the Garden of Beasts. Trump is much more analogous to Mussolini. (Source)

Daniel HamermeshAt a time of increased danger of totalitarianism in the U.S., reading a history of an insider’s view of its growth in Germany in the 1930s gives a good perspective on our contemporary problems, as well as being fascinating history and biography in its own right. (Source)

Paul TherouxI chose this book because not many people know it – it’s hardly on every bookshelf. Carlo Levi was an Italian Jew from Florence, banished in the 1930s by the Mussolini government for criticising the war in Ethiopia. He is sent to the ends of the earth, and it happens that the ends of the earth in Italy is southern Italy. (Source)

Paula FredriksenThis is such a beautiful memoir. Levi was in political exile for a year under Mussolini, sent to a very impoverished town in the south of Italy. Levi himself is from Turin – aristocratic, well educated, left-leaning politically, very urban and urbane. This tiny dusty town shocks him, both its poverty and its class structure. (Source)

Lawrence KaplanThe takeaway from reading this horror-filled book is that depredations on the scale of those that Browning describes can be perpetrated anywhere and by anyone. (Source)

Norman NaimarkThe essential lesson of Ordinary Men is that genocide is not the exclusive preserve of fanatics, racist thugs and homicidal maniacs. It is part of the human condition, especially of humans living in society. (Source)

Steven KatzThe reason this is such an important book is that when you study the Holocaust you ask almost immediately: How could people do this? How could men who had their own children, go out and murder other children? Or husbands take women and rip open their wombs and kill their infants and shoot them behind the ear? This book raised that question in a very, very strong and powerful way, based on... (Source)

Avi AsherschapiroWho could forget that great book of reportage, "Dark Money," about the shadowy mechanization of the Nurses Union & the Climate Change Youth Movement. (Source)

Hyeonseo LeeShe includes great details that show everyday life in North Korea. (Source)

David GorskiI also note that is a great book, essential reading to understand how we got to where we are today with the radical right. (Source)

David Heinemeier HanssonEscape from Freedom examines what happened to the human psyche when we went from a medieval caste system to the modern world. As we gained freedom from all sorts of oppressions, we also got detached from a predictable and safe role in society. That anxiety is often difficult to cope with, especially when things don’t turn out the way we aspired to. Fromm argues that we need to balance this... (Source)

Derek Sivers[Derek Sivers recommended this book in the book "Tools of Titans".] (Source)

William FiennesThey’re a mixture of short stories and autobiographical essays, or essays in autobiography. Levi uses the elements from the periodic table as a way of organising memory. He uses 21 elements, each as a doorway or wormhole into a particular area of his experience, into a particular memory – but leaving out his time in Auschwitz, because he’d already written about that. You get his early interest in... (Source)

Tim RadfordIt’s a life story by a chemist seen through the prism of an elemental substance. Some of it doesn’t work very well and some of it works very well. There’s a lovely chapter on iron that refers to the arrival of the Fascist era. There’s a much more personal account involving mine tailings and the extraction of precious metals from mine tailing, which he was employed at. That gives him a chance to... (Source)

Yuval Noah HarariA brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world. (Source)

Vote Dem For The Planet@DeVos1990 @CommentOnTWLB @GOP Yes, yes, yes! Great book, and a huge warning? (Source)

Chris MullinIn my opinion what a good diarist needs are an eye for detail, a light touch, and considerable self-discipline. You’ve got to make a record every day and the busier you are – at the top end of politics you do tend to be rather busy – the more difficult it is. As far as politics is concerned, the most successful diaries seem to be those who never made it too far up the greasy pole. Those who did... (Source)

Stephen BushIt’s just a really thrilling book, as well as being a really interesting history of that time. But the reason why I think it’s also a brilliant political book is fundamentally what Plokhii reveals in his writing, is that the failure of Chernobyl was fundamentally a failure of a political system, as well as a failure of a scientific system. (Source)

Kate BrownHe’s really good here at laying down the background of the disaster itself, the plant’s construction, the days leading up to it, the moments the accident occurred. He talks about the accident itself, the delay in informing the public, the censorship of news, the trial of the nuclear power plant operators who he thinks were treated as scapegoats, and the political outcomes of all this deception. (Source)

Timothy SnyderYes. Milosz tried to explain – as the title suggests – how thinking people could accept communism from inside the communist system. How does one not resist or just endure, but actually place one’s mind in the system? He points to a number of ways in which the mind can adapt. You can accept one larger truth that guides your interpretation of all of the smaller untruths, accept a vision of the... (Source)

Anne ApplebaumThe Captive Mind isn’t a straight memoir. Although Milosz is writing about his own life and his past, he is also grappling with a larger subject: How his generation of liberal intellectuals came to collaborate with, and work alongside, the Communist party. And he is trying to understand his own behaviour: Why did I act that way? (Source)

Ruth Ben-GhiatAll of Traverso’s work is fabulous, but given how concerned we should be now about how authoritarian movements come to power, this is an invaluable introduction. It’s the right book for right now. (Source)

Antonio EramThis book was recommended by Antonio when asked for titles he would recommend to young people interested in his career path. (Source)

Joanna KavennaYou think you’ve acquired one truth: but that truth is really that there are infinite truths and infinite worlds, and nobody knows what the hell is going on, basically. (Source)

Alan TaylorIt’s a fascinating book, beautifully written and, as a slim novel, you can go back to it every year and always find something new in it. (Source)

Demetri SevastopuloAnna has long written great stuff on North Korea. Check out her book on Kim Jong Un https://t.co/geJMplr29j (Source)

Marcel DirsusTruly fascinating book, can only recommend it https://t.co/y6kXaVR32K (Source)

Patrick ChovanecI'm part of the way through @annafifield's book and it's fascinating. Lots of pieces that I've heard bits of, but never put together to form the full mosaic. I highly recommend it. https://t.co/ax2CQEeu1u (Source)

Ayaan Hirsi AliOne of the biggest lessons for me from this book is that so many bad ideas that lead to authoritarian consequences begin with good intentions. (Source)

Kurt BarlingThis book helped me to think in a different way, gave me a strategy of looking for an alternative narrative in society. (Source)