Did Hungary Become Fascist?.

An analysis of the political development of Western Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which argues that the evolution of nations into liberal democracies, social democracies or fascist regimes was attributable to a set of social and class alliances within the individual nations.

Political history in the industrial world has indeed ended, argues this pioneering study, but the winner has been social democracy - an ideology and political movement that has been as influential as it has been misunderstood. Berman looks at the history of social democracy from its origins in the late nineteenth century to today and shows how it beat out competitors such as classical liberalism, orthodox Marxism, and its cousins, Fascism and National Socialism by solving the central challenge of modern politics - reconciling the competing needs of capitalism and democracy. Bursting on to the scene in the interwar years, the social democratic model spread across Europe after the Second World War and formed the basis of the postwar settlement. This is a study of European social democracy that rewrites the intellectual and political history of the modern era while putting contemporary debates about globalization in their proper intellectual and historical context.

The rise of a new Europe prompts many questions, most of which remain to be answered. What does it all mean? Where is it going to lead? This text ponders these and other equally vexing questions.

What was fascism, why did it gain support between the wars, and could it happen again? This collection of essays, published in 1981, by leading authorities on the subject, offers a comprehensive study of European fascism, with a detailed analysis of its roots, its extraordinary strength between the two world wars, and its prospects in modern Europe. The essays discuss the economic, political and social conditions out of which individual fascist movements arose, the crucial problem of why a few fascist parties succeeded but most failed. The essays on Italy, Germany and Spain examine the continuities and contradictions between the fascist movements in opposition and the fascist regimes in power. The introductory and conclusive essays are concerned with the overall problem of the historical nature of the fascist phenomenon, but all the papers address themselves directly to this theme, testing the generalizations made by social scientists against the historical experiences of individual countries. Besides Italy and Germany, which harboured the major fascist movements, the countries discussed range from those with traditional parliamentary democracies – such as England, France, Belgium and Norway – to the new states which emerged from the collapse of the central European empires, such as Austria, Hungary, Romania and Poland. Originally published in 1968 under the title European Fascism, this survey acquired a worldwide reputation for its excellent and wide-ranging account of the history, role and functions of fascism in Europe. The present edition contains six new or wholly re-written essays and three substantially revised ones.