Summary of Ruth Ben-Ghiat's Strongmen

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The first man to transform a democracy into a dictatorship was Mussolini, who created fascism. He understood that the world would never be the same after the war, and old parties and the old men who ruled them would be swept aside.
#2 Fascist regimes disrupted the existing field of politics, putting two things together that were supposed to be opposites: nationalism and Socialism. Yet Mussolini, a former Socialist, knew the power of insurrectionary language to mobilize people.
#3 Fascist combat leagues were founded in 1919, and by 1921, 2 million industrial workers and peasants had taken part in strikes and farm and factory occupations. Fascist squads started as private militias funded by industrial and agrarian bosses to end the labor unrest.
#4 After the violence, Mussolini did not have to stage a coup to take power. He turned Parliament into a bully pulpit and denounced negative coverage of him and Fascism as criminal. He created the Fascist Grand Council and the Voluntary Militia for National Security as parallel governance and defense structures.

Sujets

• Général
• modern

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669357933
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Ruth Ben-Ghiat's Strongmen
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first man to transform a democracy into a dictatorship was Mussolini, who created fascism. He understood that the world would never be the same after the war, and old parties and the old men who ruled them would be swept aside.

#2

Fascist regimes disrupted the existing field of politics, putting two things together that were supposed to be opposites: nationalism and Socialism. Yet Mussolini, a former Socialist, knew the power of insurrectionary language to mobilize people.

#3

Fascist combat leagues were founded in 1919, and by 1921, 2 million industrial workers and peasants had taken part in strikes and farm and factory occupations. Fascist squads started as private militias funded by industrial and agrarian bosses to end the labor unrest.

#4

After the violence, Mussolini did not have to stage a coup to take power. He turned Parliament into a bully pulpit and denounced negative coverage of him and Fascism as criminal. He created the Fascist Grand Council and the Voluntary Militia for National Security as parallel governance and defense structures.

#5

The Italian leader Mussolini was on top of the world in 1924, but he lost power in a murder investigation in 1925, which led to him having to resort to the strongman’s golden rule: do whatever is necessary to stay in power.

#6

The third Reich began in flames. The Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, proved to be a convenient excuse for Hitler to proceed with mass arrests of leftists and strip all Germans of civil liberties.

#7

Hitler had begun preaching against Jews, Marxists, war profiteers, and foreign powers in Vienna in the early 1920s. He had little traction beyond his small fan base. His failed November 1923 Bavarian Beer Hall Putsch damaged his reputation and sparked a prohibition on the NSDAP holding office.

#8

Feeling stymied in his attempts to bring a fascist takeover to Germany, Hitler turned to Mussolini for advice. Mussolini ignored the Austrian’s requests for his photo, but Hitler was undeterred. He installed a bust of Mussolini on his desk, and pestered Mussolini’s Berlin liaison, Army Major Giuseppe Renzetti, for a meeting.

#9

Hitler was able to take over Germany in 1933, because he was able to appeal to the country’s pain and anxiety. He was a fascist in the 1930s, and a pro-American client during the Cold War.

#10

By the mid-1930s, Spain had become the latest battleground between left and right. Between 1923 and 1930, Spain experienced authoritarian rule under General Miguel Primo de Rivera. In 1931, the leftist-led Second Republic took power, and by 1934, Franco had been given emergency dictator powers to put down a revolt.

#11

Franco’s coup in 1936 quickly secured him personal agreements with both Mussolini and Hitler for weapons, supplies, and funding. He was the only major participant in the coup left standing by the time the civil war ended in 1939.

#12

The second strongman era was fueled by two grand historical movements: decolonization and the Cold War. These leaders used the anger of their people over the tyranny of Western colonizers to rally followers.

#13

Military coups are the most common path to authoritarian rule, and they are often carried out in the name of the people. They are often bloodless, and the people have no idea they are happening.

#14

Gaddafi’s anti-colonialism was personal as well. The Italian occupation of Libya and the Fascist genocide of Gaddafi’s Bedouin people fostered his sense of being victimized by colonial crimes.

#15

In the eastern region of Cyrenaica, an assault of more than 10,000 soldiers and dozens of gas-equipped bomber planes failed against the guerrilla tactics of the Bedouin foot soldiers of the Senussi. In 1930, Graziani deported over 100,000 Bedouin and seminomads to concentration camps in the desert, where about 40,000 died of execution, starvation, and disease.

#16

Gaddafi’s personalist style of rule manifested quickly. He forced his associates to remain anonymous so that he alone was the face of the new government. Foreign diplomats and press obtained the names of some cabinet officials, but RCC members’ names and photographs were not officially made public in Libya until four months after the coup.

#17

Until 1973, Chile had escaped the fate of other Latin American countries, which had been overthrown by military coups. But the presence of multinational corporations like ITT in Chile raised a red flag for American officials. They deployed economic and psychological warfare to create the conditions to give Allende the hook.

#18

The Chilean coup of 1973 was the result of a long process of political polarization and institutional decay.