Back to European Fascism ANT ´ ONIO COSTA PINTO Michael Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 429 pp., £17.99 (pb), ISBN 052153856. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (London: Allen Lane, 2004), 321 pp., £8.99 (pb), ISBN 0141014326. Nancy Bermeo, Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times. The Citizenry and the Breakdown of Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 2003), 265 pp., £13.95 (pb), ISBN 0691089701. Didier Musiedlack, Mussolini (Paris: Presses de Sciences PO, 2005), 436 pp., €16.15, ISBN 2724608062. Paul H. Lewis, Latin Fascist Elites. The Mussolini, Franco and Salazar Regimes (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 209 pp., $85.95 (hb), ISBN 027597880X. European fascism continues to attract a considerable degree of attention, as witnessed by the publication of many works over the past few years. Recently the comparative study of fascism has centred increasingly on its ideological and cultural dimensions, at times becoming ‘ideology-centred’. We could even say that, at least on a superficial level, the analysis of so-called ‘generic fascism’ has moved from a ‘sociological’ to a more ‘political’ perspective, giving both ideology and culture much more importance than previously. On the other hand, this area has become more restricted in disciplinary terms with historians clearly dominating, while sociology and political science seem to be abandoning the subject. 1 Michael Mann’s Fascists represents a welcome return from the best traditions of comparative historical sociology towards the analysis of fascism and its role in the crises and collapse of democracy. This book restores ‘society and politics’ to the centre of the study of fascism. Deviating slightly from his major work, The Sources Instituto de Ciˆ encias Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Professor An´ ıbal de Bettencourt, 9, 1600–189 Lisbon, Portugal. acpinto@ics.ul.pt. 1 With some exceptions that are connected to studies of the crises and fall of democratic regimes, as in the case of D. Berg-Schlosser and J. Mitchell, eds., Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919–39: Systematic Case Studies (London: Macmillan, 2000); and, from the same editors, Authoritarianism and Democracy in Europe, 1919–39: Comparative Analyses (London: Palgrave, 2003), as well as Bermeo’s book which is reviewed here. See also Giovanni Capoccia, Defending Democracy. Reactions to Extremism in Interwar Europe (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Contemporary European History, 15, 1 (2006), pp. 103–115 C  2006 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0960777306003122 Printed in the United Kingdom