Whereas liberalism, conservatism and socialism are nineteenth-century ideologies,
fascism is a child of the twentieth century. Some would say that it is specifically
an interwar phenomenon. Although fascist beliefs can be traced back to the
late nineteenth century, they were fused together and shaped by World War I and
its aftermath and, in particular, by the potent mixture of war and revolution that
characterized the period. The two principal manifestations of fascism were
Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship in Italy in 1922–43, and Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship
in Germany in 1933–45. Forms of neo fascism and neo-Nazism have also
resurfaced in recent decades, taking advantage of the combination of economic
crisis and political instability that often followed the collapse of communism or,
more widely, of increased anxieties over immigration and multiculturalism (see
p. 167).