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Robert O. Paxton, MacGregor Knox. To the Threshold of Power, 1922/33: Origins and Dynamics of the Fascist and National Socialist Dictatorships, Volume 1. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. Pp. xvi, 448. Cloth $75.00, paper $22.99., The American Historical Review, Volume 114, Issue 1, February 2009, Pages 204–205, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.114.1.204
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Extract
MacGregor Knox's study is a compelling and densely packed narrative of a dual process: the collapse of liberal regimes in Italy and Germany after 1918, and their replacement by new radical nationalist mass movements led by charismatic men. It is based on impressively wide knowledge of the secondary literature and the language of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.
Knox is a leading scholar of the war-making capacities of modern Italy and Germany. Unsurprisingly the military is at the center of his account. The most authoritative chapter—a quarter of the book—treats the experience of World War I and conflicting efforts in the two countries to give it meaning. At the end, Knox attributes to the Italian and German armies “decisive” roles as “the prime mover” in the creation of the two dictatorships (pp. 395, 397). The other culprit, for Knox, was the failure of these two countries' established political leaderships to adapt to mass politics. Knox's recounting of the eruption of two mass political currents—socialist and Catholic—while elites failed to create a corresponding mass movement of their own is fine-grained and deeply informed. The third component of Knox's analysis is ideology. In both countries myths about national destiny, the menace of internal and external enemies, and the legitimacy of aggressive expansion became dominant within the armies, the conservative elite, and even parts of the opposition. These ideologies predated the fascist and Nazi parties, and they exerted powerful sway throughout the period examined. With some asperity, Knox accuses those who downplay the role of ideology in this matter of assuming that Marxism constitutes the “ideal type” of ideology; of ignorance of the texts; or of the belief that “discourse” is a mere construction unrelated to decision making (p. 340).
