The Search for Neofascism

I received a catalog from Cambridge University Press, and one book caught my attention because it echoes something I always discuss in class and blogged about in July, namely the abuse of the word “fascism.” In July I wrote:

The word “fascist” has been thrown around so often that it has come only to mean “politician I don’t like.” The word “terrorist” is heading in the same direction.

The new book I spotted is The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science by A. James Gregor at Berkeley. Here is part of the synopsis:

Its central thesis of the work [sic] is that terms like 'fascism', 'generic fascism', and 'neofascism' are often used with considerable indifference, applied uniquely to political movements and regimes considered on the 'right' rather than the 'left', intended more often to denigrate rather than inform. The result has been confusion.

I will have to take a look at this book.