A political ideology that emerged in Europe after World War I, characterized by ultranationalism, authoritarian rule, the cult of the leader, rejection of liberal democracy and Marxism, and the glorification of violence and national rebirth — and by the regimes, primarily in Italy and Germany, that governed under its name.
Fascism is the political idea that won its first test — seizing power in Italy and Germany — and then lost its second, catastrophically, in the most destructive war in human history. Understanding it means understanding how a movement that glorified irrationality was itself a rational response to specific historical conditions, and why it has not disappeared.