Did It Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America

Since the 2016 US presidential election, politicians, historians, intellectuals and media pundits have debated a startling question: Is fascism happening in America? Some argue that fascism has arrived and, to grasp the challenge it poses, we must gain insight from Europe’s past, lest American democracy succumb. But others question whether this Eurocentric notion truly reflects America's political moment, or exemplifies a provincial American perspective on a much more complex global landscape. To illuminate the issues, this anthology offers key texts from the sharpest minds commenting on politics and history, past and present. Jumping off from classic pieces by Hannah Arendt, Angela Davis, Upton Sinclair, Reinhold Niebuhr, Leon Trotsky and others, Did It Happen Here? brings together the most insightful contributors to the contemporary discussion, from Samuel Moyn to Robin DG Kelley to Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Pankaj Mishra. The result is the go-to resource for every politically attuned