American Fascism

Links

Books

  1. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (https://www.powells.com/book/origins-of-totalitarianism-9780156701532)
  2. Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (https://www.powells.com/book/it-cant-happen-here-9780451465641)
  3. Matthew M. Lyons, Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Raf Right’s Challenge to State and Empire(https://www.powells.com/book/insurgent-supremacists-the-u-s-far-rights-challenge-to-state-empire-9781629635118)
  4. Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century(https://www.powells.com/book/on-tyranny-9780804190114)
  5. Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America(https://www.powells.com/book/road-to-unfreedom-russia-europe-america-9780525574477)
  6. Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works (https://www.powells.com/book/how-fascism-works-9780525511854)
  7. Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology (https://www.powells.com/book/the-birth-of-fascist-ideology-9780691044866)
  8. Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism(https://www.powells.com/book/power-worshippers-inside-the-dangerous-rise-of-religious-nationalism-9781635577877)
  9. Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them (https://www.powells.com/book/how-civil-wars-start-9780593137789)

Films

  1. Conspiracy (2001): reenactment of the January 20, 1942 Wannsee Conference to plan the “Final Solution” (Holocaust), organized by SS Major Adolf Eichmann under the direction of Chief of Security Reinhard Heidrich. 
  2. Downfall (2005): the reenacted last days of the Third Reich, in Hitler’s Bunker, based on several cross-referenced sources, but centered on Traudl Junge’s autobiographical account, English translation, Hitler’s Last Secretary, Arcade Publishing, New York, 2003.
  3. Get Me Roger Stone (2017): documentary on “Trump’s brain,” whose first rule of politics is “It’s better to be infamous than never famous at all.” Prince of scandal, treachery, corruption, the Brooks Brothers riots, and the anti-Hillary chant “lock her up!”
  4. The Architecture of Doom: The Nazi Philosophy of Beauty Through Violence (1991): documentary that illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture, and popular culture. The Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the so-called “retarded and sick,” to the persecution of “homosexuals” and the extermination of Jews, Sinsi, Roma, and other “undesirables.” 
  5. The Plot Against America (2000): TV mini-series, based on the Philip Roth’s 2004 novel with the same name, is set in 1939-1941 America, when FDR and Charles Lindbergh dueled for the heart and head of America.
  6. The Red Orchestra (2005): documentary of perhaps the most effective, and diverse, anti-Fascist resistance groups in Germany, 1933-1942. Anne Nelson’s Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler (2009) is perhaps the best English language book on the topic. 
  7. Triumph of the Will (1935): made during the Nuremberg Congress of the Nazi Party in 1934, Leni Riefenstahl’s use of moving cameras, aerial photography, music and cinematography created one of the greatest propaganda films of all time – for, unfortunately, tragic effect.

Websites

  1. Oped News
    Progressive, Liberal United States and International News, Opinion, Op-Eds and Politic
  2. Now and Then, award-winning historians Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman: Fascism Meanings and Methods
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fascism-meanings-and-methods/id1567665859?i=1000584754091