BLACK AND BROWN - An Illustrated History of Fascism and Nazism 1919-1946

Rooted in the trauma of the First World War, fascism and Nazism — even if they diverged on many points — converged in their hatred of Western democracies and their determination to erect a total and totalitarian state, absolutist and expansionist, rivalling that of their communist adversary. One of the great strengths of this book — and there are many — is its demonstration of the worldwide appeal they were able to generate, not only in Europe but across the entire globe, through the establishment of puppet states and fraternal parties, without forgetting the third pillar of "the Axis": Japan, systematically overlooked.

More broadly, historiography tends to treat each of these regimes in isolation, while limiting itself to the political and then military dimension of their history from the Second World War onward — a war that begins, though who remembers it, with the invasion of Manchuria by the Empire of the Rising Sun in 1931.

True to his approach, Jean-Christophe Buisson encompasses everything, giving ample space to cultural, social, scientific and sporting history while naturally not neglecting political, diplomatic and military history. Yet he orders his material with perfect judgement, preserving the quality of grand narrative throughout. The result is an edifying, lively, and innovative account — innovative by its very method, which brings together through chronology events that are habitually kept apart. Some twenty brisk portraits round out the whole, magnificently illustrated by around a hundred images that favour little-known and forgotten representations.

A landmark book destined to become a future classic.