COMING SOON: Alternatives to Democracy in Twentieth-Century

Collectivist Visions of Alternative Modernity. An original work of historical synthesis by an esteemed international scholar, this book offers the first comparative analysis of the four different types of collectivism (communism, fascism; Nazism; anarchism) that aspired to create an ‘alternative modernity’ in twentieth-century Europe. The author presents not only the authoritarian alternatives to democracy of the past century, but also the experiment with anarchism undertaken in Spain in the late 1930s. The analysis shows how these political systems are driven by competing visions of alternative modernity and how the prioritization of values plays out in politics. Each political concept discussed in the book found support among broad sectors of its respective population at one time or another, and was championed by professionals in the countries in which it took hold. Sabrina Ramet discusses the political vision which guided the construction (or in the anarchist case, attempted construction) of each alternative to democracy, oriented to an alternative future, in a balanced and scholarly manner. She also examines debates among the participants within individual projects.The book ends with a defense of liberal democracy, exploring departures from it in contemporary Hungary, Poland, and the United States.