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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
It’s in a weird spot of being somewhat jargony at the same time that its project feels like that of an encyclopedia. Some interesting ideas but I find myself more curious about the works he quotes than about the rest of this book. So to its credit it could be a good launch point for other reading. In particular I’d prefer a deep look at industrial cultural production, mass phenomena, positive libidinal appeal of fascism, whereas Toscano seems to flip through different conceptions that touch on these. I worry that “fascism” loses coherency in this approach, too.
I don’t think it’s such a hard read if you’re familiar with critical theory: it seems more jargony than necessary, but the prose isn’t difficult like Adorno or Foucault. If you can read Adorno you should probably do more of that instead of reading this. Still, I think the book is a worthwhile compendium of ideas, especially if you have an introductory knowledge of theory and you’re looking to build up to deeper reading.
I don’t think it’s such a hard read if you’re familiar with critical theory: it seems more jargony than necessary, but the prose isn’t difficult like Adorno or Foucault. If you can read Adorno you should probably do more of that instead of reading this. Still, I think the book is a worthwhile compendium of ideas, especially if you have an introductory knowledge of theory and you’re looking to build up to deeper reading.
I'm not going to say I didn't get anything out of this book, there are some moments of definite interest raised by the connections Toscano posits, but my was this a challenging read, and not in a way that really seemed worthwhile. Perhaps my assumption that this work would more deeply draw on examples from our present moment in a more succinct way was severally off the mark, but I can't help feeling it would have made a more satisfying read. Not sure I would recommend unless you are very well versed in critical theory.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
I have not read enough theory to understand everything in this book and neither have you. While I understand that not every book is for a mass audience, this work is dense and abstruse even by academic standards, especially if you're not already deeply ensconced in particular strains of post-structuralist analysis. I come from a background studying fascism (both "classical" and "modern") via methods of history and political science, and found this work interesting, but too many degrees abstracted away from boots-on-the-street material realities; once you spend a chapter talking about atemporal chronologies and time 'in' vs 'of' vs 'for' fascism, it gets a bit difficult to follow how any of it relates to actual political forces and human motivations. There are plenty of the usual language games and endless problemitizations expected of this corner of theory, but by and large they're not too inscrutable and the author occasionally does allow themselves to actually make a firm conclusion on something. For all my grumbling I'm not rating this lower because the author is genuinely quite thorough in their argumentation, even if much of that argumentation boils down to a shrug, and you will certainly come out of reading this having thought quite a bit about the deep abstract nature of fascist tendencies over time. You won't be any better at identifying or combatting them, if anything maybe worse, but you'll certainly have thought a lot about them.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
challenging
slow-paced
This book is really important and insightful for our moment, which is why it’s such a shame that it is written and translated in such a horribly abstract, unclear manner. Every paragraph reads like one of those samples from Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” The not-un construction appears regularly. I’m an academic so I trudged through it. Most people won’t. And they need to.
I’m not saying it needed to be a popularizing work. But even as academic work, the book is too opaque and jargon-laden. The book often fails on a diction/syntax level. A shame.
I’m not saying it needed to be a popularizing work. But even as academic work, the book is too opaque and jargon-laden. The book often fails on a diction/syntax level. A shame.