Description

‘A beguiling portrait… reminds us that, ideologically and culturally, Mores anticipates the tragedies of the 20th century, and also those of today’ The Times

One of the most anticipated books of the year according to Financial Times and New Statesman

The extraordinary story of the nineteenth-century French-Italian aristocrat Marquis de Mores, the father of fascism, and his ominous legacy

In nineteenth-century France, the first fascist was born. Decades before Mussolini, the Marquis de Mores became the first populist and openly antisemitic leader in the Western world. A key figure behind the Dreyfus affair, he tore France apart with his inflammatory media rhetoric and violent stunts. Who was this man, who both anticipated and propelled the fascist politics that erupted in the twentieth century?

Drawing on a wealth of original sources, award-winning historian Sergio Luzzatto explores the forgotten story of a father of fascism. He shows how, after losing aristocratic status in modern, democratic France, Mores led an adventurous life cattle ranching on the American frontier and building a railway in the jungles of Indochina – yet found all his schemes dogged by failure. He follows in Mores’s footsteps, as, blaming supposed Jewish machinations for his defeats, he returned to France and soon controlled a large, violent militia of disgruntled workers. Even when his rapid political rise was torpedoed by a highly publicized financial scandal, his shadow continued to loom. In Vichy France, as Jewish people were being deported to Auschwitz, officials would gather to celebrate Mores’s memory. Vivid and unsettling, The First Fascist is an engrossing exploration of the roots of our present discontent.

Publisher Review

A beguiling portrait of Mores, balancing his fascinating exploits with an acute awareness of his danger. Luzzatto reminds us that, ideologically and culturally, Mores anticipates the tragedies of the 20th century, and also those of today * The Times * Part adventurer, part entrepreneur, part ideologue, the Marquis de Mores is one of the nineteenth century’s most intriguing figures, with exploits that span four continents. And above all, as Sergio Luzzatto demonstrates in this superb biography, he is the forefather of extreme-right nationalist and antisemitic movements that remain all too familiar to this day. The First Fascist offers an indispensable, urgently relevant look at a toxic past that is also, alas, a tragic prologue — Caroline Weber, author of Proust’s Duchess This deeply researched and thoroughly engrossing biography shows how the Marquis de Mores, one of the most colorful figures of the nineteenth century, helped invent the fascist style of politics. From the American plains to the Parisian streets, the rabble-rousing aristocrat was one of the first to see the potential of antisemitism to galvanize populist resentment against capitalist elites, and Sergio Luzzatto reconstitutes his fascinating life with exceptional acuity. This is an important book for understanding not just fin-de-siecle France but our own political moment as well — Maurice Samuels, author of Alfred Dreyfus In this darkly scintillating biography, Sergio Luzzatto engagingly charts the dangerous life of the Marquis de Mores: aristocrat, adventurer, gunslinging rancher in the Dakota Territory, railway enthusiast in southeast Asia, freebooting expeditionary in the Sahara?and a founding father of fascism. The First Fascist adds another fascinating and disturbing layer to our understanding of how the ideology, culture, charismatic leadership, and violence associated with the fascist movements of the twentieth century had some of their roots in the fraught atmosphere of the fin-de-siecle — Mike Rapport, author of 1848