I was a big fan of the Remainiacs Podcast back in the Brexit days, and particularly the ability of Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey to make complex concepts understandable, engaging, and often bloody funny. They’ve both spun off into other areas since; I’ve right previous books from them both, but this is the first I’ve read that has been jointly authored. It’s based on their Origin Story podcast and covers the light topic of fascism.
It’s my kind of book; focussed, not too long, and very well written. It sweeps through the origin of fascism in early 20th century Italy and Germany, and then looks at more recent regimes asking some big questions – what exactly is fascism, under what conditions does it thrive, are there any current fascist leaders across the world, and how can it be countered?
The text skips along at a nice pace; undoubtedly helped by the tight editing needed to hit a shorter page count. Many other books count benefit from this! There are also some really nice touches in the prose that really convey the humour of Ian and Dorian, one example being this pun about General Franco that made me chuckle:
The Spanish Civil War would have happened with or without him; he just schemed his way to the front of the coup.
It’s a book and I’ll definitely look at reading the other titles in the Origin Story series.
