?The paradox of the fascination exercised by fascism lies precisely in the ?sincerity? of its ideology. In fascism we face a brutal and openly proclaimed aversion to freedom, equality, happiness and peace as life's ideals; we are confronted with an ideology praising irrationality, the will to power by select minorities, the obedience of the masses, the sacrifice of the individual to the collective understood as the state and the nation. The fascists never claimed to want to spread freedom and rationality to the world. They proclaimed that reason counted for little in politics where only force, the will to power and the consensus created by myth and faith, really do count. Fascism never promised the emancipation and liberation of man.? Emilio Gentile The Origins of Fascist Ideology 1918-1925 - Afterword "Emilio Gentile is one of Italy's most prolific and influential students of Italian fascism...Gentile has made a major contribution not only to Italian history but to our ongoing effort to grasp the contours of the modern political experiment." --David D. Roberts, American Historical Review "Emilio Gentile is one of the most important and innovative historians working on Fascism anywhere today... --Robert Gordon, Patterns of Prejudice [UK] "Gentile's mastery of Italian history and of the literature on fascism is dazzling. --Walter L. Adamson, author of Avant-Garde Florence: From Modernism to Fascism
