The epic battle between communism and liberal democracy ended with breathtaking ease, and the first few euphoric years of democracy's triumph seemed to hold out the promise of a world at last entering a political consensus around the rights and values of an individualistic society. But the closing years of the twentieth century have proved the resilience and extent of the century's third great political force: fascism.

The success of fascist parties in European elections, the appearance of fascist-inspired groups in the United States, and the recurrence of fascistlike political behavior in the numerous nationalist-inspired wars now consuming the former communistic bloc have provoked a reevaluation of the political movement once thought utterly defeated and discredited.

In fact, fascism has never received the serious attention and sustained scrutiny that has been trained on both communism and liberalism. Only a detailed, objective, and dispassionate approach to the question of what fascism is, and how and why it has been both a success in some countries and a failure in others, will begin to provide useful and constructive answers.