Books February 2008
State worship
On Liberal Fascism, by Jonah Goldberg.
Liberal Fascism:The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
Doubleday, 487 pages, $27.95
Liberal Fascism came under attack even before it had gone through the formality of being published or made informally available as uncorrected proofs. Lexington, The Economists usually urbane Washington columnist, devoted the first of two dismissive comments to it nine months before publication. Progressive critics in the blogosphere were positively sulphurous in the month before it appeared. A gaggle of critics on Amazon discussed, with counterexamples (A dark and stormy night etc.), whether this was the worst book ever written. It was still ahead when I last checked.
What seems to have induced this frenzied rejection is the books title suggesting that fascism is a liberal or left-wing phenomenon....
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