Reaction and the Avant-Garde: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy in Early Twentieth-Century Britain (International Library of Political Studies)

This book illuminates a vital facet of right-wing thought in the first decades of the twentieth century, which had a powerful hold on Europe's intellectual elite. Prominent literary figures, such as Alfred Orange, Ezra Pound, Hilaire Belloc and the Chestertons, led a revolt against liberal parliamentary democracy in Britain. This group--a self-identifying Nietzschean elite eager to lead the masses--despised parliaments as representing and embodying a "nation." Tom Villis examines the literary works, private papers, correspondence and memoirs of the leaders of this anti-Semitic, anti-modern, anti-women's rights movement that formed the intellectual underpinning of European fascism. "'Reaction and the Avant-Garde" illuminates a vital facet of right-wing thought in the first decades of the century, which had a powerful hold on Europe's intellectual elite. Prominent literary figures, such as Ezra Pound, Hilaire Belloc and the Chestertons, led a revolt against liberal parliamentary democracy in Britain. This group despised parliaments as representing and embodying a 'nation'. Villis examines the literary works, private papers, correspondence and memoirs of the leaders of this anti-Semitic, anti-modern, anti-women's rights movement that formed the intellectual underpinning of European fascism."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 1. Readers, Writers and Intellectual Networks......Page 28 2. Elitism and the Revolt of the Masses......Page 50 3. The Forging of an Anti-Parliamentary Tradition......Page 81 4. The Nation......Page 116 5. The New Age, the New Witness and the Jews......Page 155 6. Sterile Virgins on the Drab Rampage: The Image of Women in the New Age and the New Witness......Page 183 Conclusion......Page 201