Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler Roger Griffin It has been widely assumed that fascism was anti-modern, the sworn enemy of genuine culture: thus the Third Reich barbarically destroyed modernism, while fascism cynically harnessed the creativity of the artistic avant-garde and technocratic elite to reactionary ends. In contrast, Roger Griffin's Modernism and Fascism convincingly portrays fascism as a 'total form of modernism in its own right. Like a modernist painting itself, this ambitious book transforms our understanding of the art, technology, social ethos, and politics of the first half of the twentieth century. Roger Griffin is Professor in Modern History at Oxford Brookes University, UK. His The nature of Fascism (1991) established the first new theory of generic fascism for over a decade and was followed by numerous influential publications, including the documentary reader Fascism (1995) and the five volumes of secondary sources relating to fascism in the Routledge Critical Concepts in Political Science series (2003).