An Unofficial 'The Rest Is History' Reading List

372. The Birth of British Fascism

September 24, 2023

Description

The cultural roots of fascism swirled around Britain at the turn of the 20th century, as medieval nostalgia, an obsession with hygiene, anti-semitism, and concern for the environment grew in the...
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Books Referenced

Hurrah for the Black Shirts

Author: Martin Pugh

Context:

Described as 'the definitive book on this' regarding British fascism and the threat it posed to Britain

Tarka the Otter

Author: Henry Williamson

Context:

Mentioned as 'that much-loved children's book' and 'classic sort of fictions of the English countryside for children,' noting the author's flirtation with fascism

The Intellectuals and the Masses

Author: John Carey

Context:

Described as a 'great literary critic in his book' which was 'a massive dissection of the Bloomsbury group' and discussed proto-fascist cultural imagination

King Solomon's Mines

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Context:

Referenced in discussion of 'the fiction of empire, and this obsession with manliness, with proving yourself'

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Author: Anonymous (fraudulent)

Context:

Described as 'a kind of a racist anti-Semitic fantasy' that newspapers were full of reports about in 1920-1921, and which The Times ran articles about

The 39 Steps

Author: John Buchan

Context:

Mentioned as one of Buchan's 'thrilling spy stories' that contained ideas about Jewish financiers and conspiracies

Greenmantle

Author: John Buchan

Context:

Mentioned alongside The 39 Steps as one of Buchan's spy stories reflecting paranoid conspiracy theories of the era

Bulldog Drummond

Author: H.C. McNeile (Sapper)

Context:

Mentioned as 'thrillers that I used to love when I was a boy, which are very, very anti-Semitic, very anti-Bolshevik, very paranoid' about demobilized officers

A Treatise on the One Humped Camel in Health and Disease

Author: Arnold Spencer-Leese

Context:

Described as 'his masterwork' published the same year he set up the Imperial Fascist League, jokingly compared to Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf

Author: Adolf Hitler

Context:

Mentioned in comparison to Arnold Spencer-Leese's book on camels, implying it's 'a better read' than Hitler's work