Where Have All The Fascists Gone?

The Intellectual European New Right (ENR), also known as the nouvelle droite, is a cultural school of thought with origins in the revolutionary Right and neo-fascist milieux. Born in France in 1968, it situated itself in a Gramscian mould exclusively on the cultural terrain of political contestation in order to challenge the apparent ideological hegemony of dominant liberal and leftist elites. It also sought to escape the ghetto status of a revolutionary Right milieu wedded to violent extra-parliamentary politics and battered by the legacies of Fascism and Nazism. This study traces the cultural, philosophical, political and historical trajectories of the French nouvelle droite in particular and the ENR in general. It examines the ENR worldview as an ambiguous synthesis of the ideals of the revolutionary Right and New Left. ENR themes related to the loss of cultural identity and immigration have appealed to anti-immigrant political parties throughout Europe. In a post 9/11 climate, as well as an age of rising economic globalization and cultural homogenization, its anti-capitalist ideas embedded within the framework of cultural preservation might make further political inroads into the Europe of the future.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword; Preface; The ENR's historical and ideological origins: the right-wing roots; The ENR's birth and development in France: a new right?; The nouvelle droite in the 1980s and 1990s: opening to the left; The ENR and the legacy of May 1968 - a critical turning point; ENR influences and worldview: the primacy of metapolitics and the 'right to difference'; Ambiguities in the ENR worldview; Interpreting the ENR; The influence of the nouvelle droite in Europe and beyond: a right-wing international?; The ENR's relationship to the extreme-right and neo-Fascism; Treason of the intellectuals?; Conclusion; References; Index.

About the Author :
Tamir Bar-On, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

Review :
'Post-war right-wing extremist movements come in a bewildering variety of shapes and forms, but this book provides a well-written and masterly guide (the first one in the English language) to the evolution of one particularly influential variety known as the European New Right. It deserves to be read by all who care about the future of Europe.' Cyprian Blamires, Editor of World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia '...an important piece of intellectual history that should be of interest to students of international right-wing extremism, the history of ideas and comparative nationalism...[it] will be appreciated by specialists and the broader public alike.' Patterns of Prejudice