[.ca] The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's ... (ISBN 0415925460)

From Amazon.com:
If you thought Nazism died with Hitler, think again. In The Beast Reawakens, journalist Martin A. Lee traces the resurgence of fascist ideals from the prominent Nazis who escaped prosecution following World War II to the present-day incidents of right-wing violence in Europe and America. One only has to look at the current situation in the Balkans to see that fascism is alive and well. Lee begins his troubling account by reminding us of the many prominent Nazis who, after the war, built new and profitable lives for themselves fomenting political intrigue, while providing role models to a new generation of neo-Nazis all around the world. This underground Nazi culture might have remained out of sight had it not been for the fall of Communism. In the confusion following the end of the Cold War, right-wing nationalist movements sprang up all over Europe, taking root especially deep in formerly communist areas such as Croatia, Bosnia, and Romania. According to Lee, "the Beast" doesn't restrict itself to Eastern Europe by any means; skinhead violence against immigrants is on the rise in Germany, while right-wing politicians in France, Italy, and other western European countries are increasingly finding a willing audience for their national and racial polemics. And lest American readers be lulled into a false sense of security, Lee warns that the United States is hardly immune to this kind of hateful rhetoric. He warns that many of the militia groups currently operating today share the same glorified attitude toward violence, the same irrational hatred of foreigners and ethnic minorities that mark the worst excesses of fascism in Europe.

Reads like an endless term paper, but still helpful in parts:
It's clear that a journalist and not a scholar typed this; perusing the endnotes you see that it's cobbled together from hundreds of websites (some now defunct), books, and articles. It's narrower than I expected: Britain barely gains a mention, but Latin America (e.g. Apristas in Peru) gains more attention, and Russia and Germany receive the lion's share of international coverage, balanced with the American fringes. It's unsurprising in its perspective, but having consolidated helpful documentation of Arab-Nazi/far-right ties, the hijinks of such as Yockey, Otto Ernst Remer, Skorzeny, and Gerhard Rex Lauch makes for unintentionally entertaining reading. I liked the vignette of Jewish tourists throwing bagels and lox at American Nazi Rockwell, and the delusions of the anti-ZOG megalomaniacs. Too often, however, the book bogs down, especially in its post-war diplomatic accounts, in minutiae that had me nodding off. The condensation of the emergence of the French New Right, under Benoiste, and the permutations of the German thinkers, on the other hand, kept me page-turning. Certainly the descriptions of Yockey, for example, drawn I imagine from Kevin Coogan's bio in manuscript, showed Lee's ability to make his subject come alive. Still, reflecting perhaps the rush to get this in print post-McVeigh, you get clumsy sentences like this (as early as the preface, xxvii): "With that fateful sub rosa embrace, the die was cast for a litany of antidemocratic CIA interventions." Three metaphors mixed in 17 words. Or this non-sequitor. After citing evidence of neo-Nazi German views intersecting with "the perverse logic of ecofascism," Lee then claims that $Qhis type of thinking would enable mainstream politicians to avoid racist terminology while advocating xenophobic views. 'We have to think of the ecological consequences of unlimited immigration.' declared Otto Zeitler, Bavaria's land development minister, after German unification." (218) Yes, certainly we have to think about such issues, but I see no xenophobia in pondering the obvious in Zeitler's statement. Routledge has published lots of fascist studies the past decade and a half; I recommend their very accessible and intelligently organized "Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right" for an ideal introduction free of stereotypes or sloppy analyses. With Lee's book, the haste seems to emerge in the lapse in rigor. The bias is evident in this book, but after having dutifully read it all, I find the purported threat from these factions in the West overblown, and those from the Middle East, on the other hand, largely ignored by the Left. It does gather in one volume a sobering reminder of how much the West, especially the U.S., cozied up to the remnants of the Nazi regime to keep them out of Stalin's grasp, and how much disinformation continues to be shelled out, by the Left and the Right, about the involvement between anti-communist factions, the far-right, and America.

Interesting,except for silly "German-bashing":
Mr. Lee's book is well written, and a fascinating read. The topic is one of great interest, and is timely in our "Post Cold War World". I was fascinated to read of the various activities of post war German exiles, and even more fascinated by the goings-on of the various current post Cold War varieties of fascism and its offshoots. Ultimately though the book is fundamentally flawed. A reader would be forgiven if they came away with no other impression than Mr. Lee despises all things German, including the Germans, and assigns to them responsibility for many of the afflictions of the post World War era.Its a hypothesis that may be a comfort to certain people, but reason and inquiry are unable to sustain. Mr. Lee's anti-German views are ultimately of little consequence to anyone but himself, except to the extent they detract and degrade from what I take to be the serious message of his book, namely the need to be on guard against a resurgence of the terrible effects of fascism. In this respect he has hindered this effort.

Inaccuries on every page:
Every page had historical inaccuracies. The goal of the book was to put the sins of Nazis and the CIA on Russia and Israel. Cognative dissonance on every page. A mix of historical facts with the authors agenda. Praises George Bush Sr as a noble person, need any more be said. The author has no credibility, he writes as a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, which is what i view him as after reading this book

A book for all people and all seasons:
Every American--at the very least--must read this book.The danger is real, folks, and this "beast" must be stopped; and the only way to stop it is to be aware of it. This book is painful to read, (1)because it confirms our worst fears: our government and its demented spooks allowed Nazi criminals into this country and allowed them to roam about Europe and Latin America, too, and (2) because of the atrocities the neo-fascists commit in the name of nationalism in Europe,and generally in the name of religion and race in this country, although the motives are all bound up together everywhere. Read this book in small doses ,otherwise, most of you will be sick and nauseated to know what is going on behind our backs and under our noses. Politicans pander to these nut cases for votes and support which legitimizes their crazed beliefs and makes them respectable. A really important book; the research is thorough, and the writing is powerful. Bravo to Mr. Lee for having the courage to write it.