Acknowledgments

THIS WORK is an expanded and improved version of a book published in

France in 1989 and represents the results of an inquiry begun several years
ago. It is also some time since several Ph.D. students in the history and
political science departments of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, whose
work I had the privilege of supervising, began to interest themselves in the
growth of Fascist ideology. In so doing, some of these young scholars came
to investigate certain paths I had indicated in previous works. This applied
particularly to the process of transition of the Left toward fascism.
Some of these studies have now come to fruition. Two of them have been
incorporated into this book, to which each brings its own contribution.
Chapters 3 and 4 are by Mario Sznajder, a specialist in Italian revolutionary
syndicalism. Only a concern for presentation and a desire to offer the reader
an integrated text caused me to revise their structure. Most of the material
that enabled me to write Chapter 5 was provided by Maia Asheri, who has
completed a study of early Italian fascism. Thus, many of the qualities this
work may possess can be ascribed to my collaborators, but since the intellec-
tual responsibility for the book and its general conception is mine, I am
prepared to take the blame for its weaknesses.
As in all such cases in the last eighteen years, this book has benefited from
the assistance of Georges Bensimhon. Whether it is a matter of essential
problems or of the French language, Georges Benshimon has allowed no
omission, no obscurity to pass him by. My gratitude toward this friend far
exceeds anything I am able to express in these few lines.
The initial idea for this book took shape in my mind in 1983–1984, when
I was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New
Jersey. The book progressed at Columbia University, where I spent profit-
able months in the summer of 1986, and two years later, thanks to an invita-
tion from the French government, I enjoyed an especially rewarding period
of work in Paris. The main part of the work, however, was carried out in
1986–1987 at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. My acknowledgments are due to its director, Menachem Yaari,
and to the whole administrative staff headed by Shabtai Gairon and Bilha
Gus. The invitation to pass a year in this center of research relieved me of
my teaching responsibilities and allowed me to devote myself entirely to the
preparation of this book. Our seminar of multidisciplinary research, in
which Amatzia Baram, Sana Hassan, Menachem Friedman, George Mosse,
Emmanuel Sivan, Michael Walzer, and Jay Winter in particular took part,
was a source of great enrichment for me. As an assistant to this group, Anat