Overview

A vivid biography of the nineteenth-century French-Italian aristocrat Marquis de Morès, the first political leader to master the blend of racialized hatred, cross-class solidarity, and paramilitary violence that Benito Mussolini would call “fascism.” The Marquis de Morès was the first populist, white supremacist, and openly antisemitic leader in the Western world. A key figure behind the Dreyfus affair, he took France by storm with his inflammatory rhetoric, media savvy, and violent stunts. Decades before Mussolini, Morès invoked the fasces—the ancient Roman bundle of wooden rods—to symbolize the society he wished to create: a union of all social classes against their enemy, the Jews. Animated from his early years by personal ambition and the loss of aristocratic status in modern, democratic France, Morès embarked on an extraordinary career spanning four continents. He ventured to the American frontier and became a cattle rancher in the Dakotas; he set out to build a railway in the jungles of Indochina. But his efforts were dogged by failure—and he blamed Jewish machinations for his defeats. Embittered, he returned to France to pursue what he saw as the mission of an upper-class Frenchman: to fight Jews and other minorities on behalf of the white proletariat. Soon he controlled a large, violent militia of disgruntled workers. As Sergio Luzzatto makes clear, Morès both anticipated and propelled the fascist politics that erupted in the twentieth century and still resonate powerfully in our own time. Morès’s rapid political rise was halted by financial scandal, but his shadow continued to loom. In Vichy France, as Jews were being deported to Auschwitz, officials would gather to celebrate Morès’s memory.

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Reviews

Part adventurer, part entrepreneur, part ideologue, the Marquis de Morès is one of the nineteenth century’s most intriguing figures, with exploits that span three 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 <i>Proust’s Duchess</i> In this darkly scintillating biography, Sergio Luzzatto engagingly charts the dangerous life of the Marquis de Morès: aristocrat, adventurer, gunslinging rancher in the Dakota Territory, railway enthusiast in southeast Asia, freebooting expeditionary in the Sahara—and a founding father of fascism. Luzzatto shows how Morès interwove his colorful career with antisemitism, nationalism, and populism—harnessing the alienation of working people, recruiting street thugs, and fighting duels in pursuit of his political enemies, particularly Jews. 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-siècle. -- Mike Rapport, author of <i>1848: Year of Revolution</i> This deeply researched and thoroughly engrossing biography shows how the Marquis de Morès, 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-siècle France but our own political moment as well. -- Maurice Samuels, author of <i>Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair</i> The First Fascist tells the fascinating story of a French aristocrat who made common cause with the ‘little guy’ and championed the emergent national populism and rabid antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. Engagingly written and built on solid scholarship, Sergio Luzzatto’s book chronicles the quixotic life of the Marquis de Morès as a cattleman in the American West, would-be railroad magnate in Asia, traveler in North Africa, and bitter agitator on the streets of Paris. -- Edward Berenson, author of <i>Europe in the Modern World</i>

Part adventurer, part entrepreneur, part ideologue, the Marquis de Morès 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 <i>Proust’s Duchess</i> In this darkly scintillating biography, Sergio Luzzatto engagingly charts the dangerous life of the Marquis de Morès: aristocrat, adventurer, gunslinging rancher in the Dakota Territory, railway enthusiast in southeast Asia, freebooting expeditionary in the Sahara—and a founding father of fascism. Luzzatto shows how Morès interwove his colorful career with antisemitism, nationalism, and populism—harnessing the alienation of working people, recruiting street thugs, and fighting duels in pursuit of his political enemies, particularly Jews. 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-siècle. -- Mike Rapport, author of <i>1848: Year of Revolution</i> This deeply researched and thoroughly engrossing biography shows how the Marquis de Morès, 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-siècle France but our own political moment as well. -- Maurice Samuels, author of <i>Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair</i> The First Fascist tells the fascinating story of a French aristocrat who made common cause with the ‘little guy’ and championed the emergent national populism and rabid antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. Engagingly written and built on solid scholarship, Sergio Luzzatto’s book chronicles the quixotic life of the Marquis de Morès as a cattleman in the American West, would-be railroad magnate in Asia, traveler in North Africa, and bitter agitator on the streets of Paris. -- Edward Berenson, author of <i>Europe in the Modern World</i>

The First Fascist tells the fascinating story of a French aristocrat who made common cause with the ‘little guy’ and championed the emergent national populism and rabid antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. Engagingly written and built on solid scholarship, Sergio Luzzatto’s book chronicles the quixotic life of the Marquis de Morès as a cattleman in the American West, would-be railroad magnate in Asia, traveler in North Africa, and bitter agitator on the streets of Paris. -- Edward Berenson, author of <i>Europe in the Modern World</i>

Consider Antoine-Amédée-Marie-Vincent Manca Amat de Vallombrosa, known, if he is known at all, as the Marquis de Morès. He is the subject of a jaw-dropping new biography…It is quite simply the strangest, most surprising, most picaresque modern political life I have ever read, and Luzzatto recounts it with remarkable skill and even more remarkable sangfroid…an instructive tale for our time. -- Mark Lilla * New York Review of Books * More timid intellects might trace the roots of Europe’s far right to syndicalism, corporatism, anti-capitalism or medievalism. Luzzatto turns his back on the sort of history that would make politics into a bloodless debating club and goes for the jugular. -- Simon Ings * The Spectator * A beguiling portrait of Morès, balancing his fascinating exploits with an acute awareness of his danger. Luzzatto reminds us that, ideologically and culturally, Morès anticipates the tragedies of the 20th century, and also those of today. Behind his romantic bravado there lurked a wealthy narcissist with a talent for manipulation, and we’ve had enough of those. -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times * Fascinating…Morès, [Luzzatto] argues, was a pioneer of 20th-century fascism, combining many of its salient features, including, among others, racism and corporatism. This is a bold claim, but Luzzatto marshals a considerable amount of evidence to support it. -- Munro Price * Literary Review * [Luzzatto’s] subject matter, though, is garishly colourful, and he persuasively demonstrates its historical significance…Performative political action, populist rhetoric, paramilitary violence, a preference for outlaw swagger over legitimacy, and — most insistently — antisemitism: here are the prime ingredients for the nasty stew of 20th-century fascism. -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Financial Times * Luzzatto’s gripping biography tells Morès’s story well and excellently conveys the political atmosphere of Paris in the mid-1890s. -- Julian Jackson * New Statesman * Original…an entertaining read. -- Simon Heffer * The Telegraph * The conventional wisdom is that Benito Mussolini was the world’s first fascist. But Sergio Luzzatto, an Italian academic, makes a persuasive case that, in fact, it was the Marquis de Morès, a French aristocrat born in 1858. In his penchant for ‘hierarchical order, identity politics, conspiracy theories, prejudice against those who are different, incitement to racial hatred’ and use of body language and aesthetics to project power, he anticipated the worst actors of the 20th century. * The Economist * Absorbing…this profile of [Morès’s] exploits, capped with a chilling epilogue about the far-ranging consequences of fascism, is an excellent political history as well as an enticing character study. -- Ho Lin * Foreword Reviews * Part adventurer, part entrepreneur, part ideologue, the Marquis de Morès 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 <i>Proust’s Duchess</i> In this darkly scintillating biography, Sergio Luzzatto engagingly charts the dangerous life of the Marquis de Morès: aristocrat, adventurer, gunslinging rancher in the Dakota Territory, railway enthusiast in southeast Asia, freebooting expeditionary in the Sahara—and a founding father of fascism. Luzzatto shows how Morès interwove his colorful career with antisemitism, nationalism, and populism—harnessing the alienation of working people, recruiting street thugs, and fighting duels in pursuit of his political enemies, particularly Jews. 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-siècle. -- Mike Rapport, author of <i>1848: Year of Revolution</i> This deeply researched and thoroughly engrossing biography shows how the Marquis de Morès, 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-siècle France but our own political moment as well. -- Maurice Samuels, author of <i>Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair</i> The First Fascist tells the fascinating story of a French aristocrat who made common cause with the ‘little guy’ and championed the emergent national populism and rabid antisemitism of the late nineteenth century. Engagingly written and built on solid scholarship, Sergio Luzzatto’s book chronicles the quixotic life of the Marquis de Morès as a cattleman in the American West, would-be railroad magnate in Asia, traveler in North Africa, and bitter agitator on the streets of Paris. -- Edward Berenson, author of <i>Europe in the Modern World</i>

Author Information

Sergio Luzzatto is Emiliana Pasca Noether Chair in Modern Italian History at the University of Connecticut. A winner of the Cundill History Prize, he is the author of The Body of Il Duce and Primo Levi’s Resistance, among other books.

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