- How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
| Introduction | ChatGPT Chapter Summary | ChatGPT Book Synthesis |
Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future
-
Jason Stanley
From the bestselling author of How Fascism Works, a global call to action that tells us “why the past is a frontline in the struggle for a future free of fascism” (Jeff Sharlet, New York Times bestselling author) as it reveals the far right’s efforts to rewrite history and undo a century of progress on race, gender, sexuality, and class.
In the United States, democracy is under attack by an authoritarian movement
that has found fertile ground among the country’s conservative politicians and
voters, but similar movements have found homes in the hearts and minds of
people
around the globe.
To understand the shape, form, and stakes of this assault, we must go back to extract lessons from our past.
In authoritarian countries, critical examination of those nations’ history and traditions is discouraged if not an outright danger to those who do it. And it is no accident that local and global institutions of education have become a battleground, where learning and efforts to upend a hierarchal status quo can be put to end by coercion and threats of violence. Democracies entrust schools and universities to preserve a common memory of positive change, generated by protests, social movements, and rebellions. The authoritarian right must erase this history, and, along with it, the very practice of critical inquiry that has so often been the engine of future progress.
In Erasing History, Yale professor of philosophy Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the authoritarian right’s attacks on education, identifies their key tactics and funders, and traces their intellectual roots. He illustrates how fears of a fascist future have metastasized, from hypothetical threat to present reality. And with his “urgent, piercing, and altogether brilliant” (Johnathan M. Metzi, author of What We’ve Become) insight, he illustrates that hearts and minds are won in our schools and universities—places that democratic societies across the world are now ill-prepared to defend against the fascist assault currently underway.
https://www.amazon.com/Erasing-History-Fascists-Rewrite-Control/dp/1668056917
ChatGPT Chapter by Chapter Summary
Preface
The Warning Signs of Fascism
Introduction of
fascist patterns and tactics in modern democracies.
The preface to this book presents a powerful argument about the deep connection between history, education, and the health of liberal democracy. It begins with the observation that authoritarian regimes—especially fascist ones—often erase or manipulate history to serve their ideological goals. Authoritarianism thrives on a singular narrative, one that suppresses plural perspectives and denies the fluid, reflective nature of democratic history. This manipulation is particularly effective in educational systems, where curricula can be controlled to reinforce national myths, legitimize hierarchies, and stifle dissent.
Historical Parallels and Urgency
Drawing lessons
from the 20th century and Nazi Germany.
Fascist politics, the author explains, rely on tactics that divide society into “us” versus “them,” promote anti-intellectualism, glorify a mythic past, and justify racial or religious supremacy. These movements gain power not only through violence or political maneuvering but by achieving cultural legitimacy—especially through education. Erasing history allows these ideologies to claim moral clarity, portraying their vision as the only valid perspective.
The narrative becomes personal with the story of the author’s grandmother, Ilse Stanley, a Jewish actress from Berlin raised in a family deeply integrated into German cultural life. Despite her assimilation, Ilse was eventually excluded and persecuted under the Nazi regime, illustrating how fascist ideologies are immune to individual merit or cultural affiliation. Nazi Germany’s redefinition of its national identity excluded cosmopolitanism and Jewish contributions, replacing them with a fabricated, racially pure past.
The author warns that even in democratic nations like the United States, similar impulses to erase history have surfaced. The Red Scare of the 1940s–50s and current right-wing efforts to ban the teaching of racial justice or gender equality reveal how easily fear and ideology can lead to the suppression of dissenting perspectives. These developments, while perhaps less violent than 20th-century fascism, reflect a common pattern: the use of education to silence critique and reinforce social hierarchies.
The Centrality of Education in Resistance
Education
as a key battleground for democracy or fascism.
Education, the author emphasizes, plays a dual role. In liberal democracies, it can foster critical thinking, empathy, and a sense of shared responsibility. But in authoritarian systems, it often reinforces domination, reverence for leaders, and ethnic or religious supremacy. The key distinction lies in whether education cultivates epistemological hierarchies—based on knowledge—or hierarchies of value, which place certain groups above others by identity rather than merit.
Ultimately, the preface frames the book as an urgent call to defend liberal democracy by confronting and understanding fascist culture, especially its manipulation of historical narratives. By examining how education can either support democratic equality or fuel authoritarianism, the author invites readers to recognize the stakes in contemporary ideological battles over what—and whose—stories are taught.
1 - How to Create an Autocracy
Soft Autocracy and Elected Authoritarians
How
democratically elected leaders erode democratic norms.
This chapter explores how fascist and authoritarian regimes manipulate education to reshape national identity, legitimize hierarchies, and suppress dissent. Drawing on global examples, including the United States, Hungary, Russia, India, and Turkey, it illustrates how controlling education is central to constructing and maintaining authoritarian power.
The chapter opens with Toni Morrison’s warning that fascist solutions often emerge within democracies. These involve both representations (ideas, rhetoric) and practices (policies, actions), which reinforce each other. For instance, portraying immigrants as dangerous justifies their detention, and their detention then reinforces the perception of threat.
Contempt for Democratic Institutions
Attacks on
media, law, and opposition as pillars of autocracy.
Fascist ideology, as theorized by figures like Carl Schmitt, is built on friend-enemy distinctions. It thrives by designating out-groups as threats and excluding them from full citizenship. This may be organized under a strong leader, like Vladimir Putin, or through decentralized structures, like Jim Crow-era vigilante systems. Regardless of leadership style, fascist cultures elevate a dominant group as the “true people” of the nation and view egalitarianism as an existential threat.
Education plays a pivotal role in this process. Fascist movements reshape history curricula to support myths of national purity and dominance, while erasing the histories and perspectives of marginalized communities. In the U.S., recent campaigns have targeted critical race theory (CRT), intersectionality, and structural racism—concepts that explain how racial inequality is embedded in systems, not just individual bias.
Language, Propaganda, and Cult of Personality
Use
of lies, loyalty tests, and reality distortion as tools of control.
Suppressing these ideas serves a political goal: to delegitimize efforts toward racial justice and reinforce existing power structures. Teaching honest Black history becomes nearly impossible without reference to these concepts. Examples like Elizabeth Hinton’s work on mass incarceration show how omitting systemic analyses distorts the historical record and aids fascist agendas.
The chapter also spotlights educators resisting this trend, such as those in Connecticut’s Anti-Racist Teaching and Learning Collective. Despite hostile political climates, teachers incorporate works by Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison and explore parallels between historic and modern resistance movements. But such efforts often lack institutional support, and many educators avoid controversial topics out of fear.
Right-wing attacks also extend to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, painting them as undeserved advantages for minorities rather than responses to documented injustices. These efforts to erase history and suppress inclusion are part of a broader fascist strategy to delegitimize multiracial democracy.
The chapter links these tactics to Donald Trump’s growing authoritarianism, citing Project 2025—a blueprint to purge civil servants, reshape education, and promote nationalist ideology. Trump’s “war on woke” includes banning CRT and transgender rights, and closely resembles historical fascist efforts like Nazi Gleichschaltung, the alignment of institutions under party control.
Similar developments are occurring globally. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s regime rewrote the curriculum to promote ethnic nationalism and erase Jewish contributions, forcing Central European University into exile. In India, textbooks downplay Muslim history, feeding Hindu nationalist myths. In Turkey, Erdoğan has erased secular legacies and evolution from schoolbooks, promoting an Islamic-nationalist worldview.
Across these contexts, authoritarian regimes weaponize education to consolidate control. They erase historical memory, demonize minorities, and present a single mythic narrative that glorifies the dominant group. These tactics are most dangerous when cloaked in appeals to patriotism or family values.
The chapter concludes by emphasizing what fascists most fear: educators who cultivate critical thinking, empathy, and democratic values. Democratic education is inherently subversive to authoritarianism because it encourages students to question power, imagine alternatives, and recognize shared humanity. In contrast, fascist education cannot coexist with democracy or human flourishing.
2 - Colonizing the Mind
Colonial Education and Cultural Erasure
Education
as a tool of colonial domination and racial hierarchy.
This chapter explores how colonial powers have used education not only to dominate territories but also to reshape the minds and identities of the colonized. At the core of colonial control is the erasure and distortion of indigenous histories, languages, and belief systems—an intellectual and cultural conquest that follows physical violence.
Colonialism operates by depicting the colonized as having no legitimate history or culture, thereby justifying the seizure of land and imposition of foreign rule. In places like North America, this took the form of portraying the land as “empty,” while in British-colonized Kenya, it meant denying the Kikuyu’s complex social systems and spiritual traditions. The British imposed a hierarchy that replaced Kikuyu communal governance with colonial-appointed “chiefs,” who were illegitimate and often exploitative collaborators.
Internalized Inferiority and Psychological Control
How colonial systems shape self-perception and identity.
Education became a key tool for this psychological colonization. Missionary schools like Kenya’s Alliance High School, which Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o attended, taught Christian doctrine, British literature, and European history while deliberately excluding African languages and traditions. Thiong’o describes this cultural destruction as a “cultural bomb,” which shatters a people’s self-belief and makes them identify with the colonizer. His analysis reveals how language and education can be used as weapons of spiritual subjugation.
Caroline Elkins’ historical research on the Mau Mau rebellion documents how the British violently suppressed resistance with concentration camps and torture, while Kikuyu loyalists, often educated in British schools, helped enforce colonial rule. These loyalists were rewarded with land and power, reinforcing colonial hierarchies.
The chapter also draws parallels between British colonial education in Africa and the U.S. treatment of Indigenous peoples through boarding schools. These institutions, guided by the “civilization-savagism paradigm,” sought to Christianize and “civilize” Native children by erasing their cultural heritage. African American education under Booker T. Washington’s industrial model was similarly shaped by colonialist ideologies, privileging labor over political empowerment. W. E. B. Du Bois opposed this model, advocating instead for liberal education that equips Black Americans to fully participate in democracy.
The ideology of settler colonialism depends on portraying lands as uninhabited and Indigenous people as obstacles to progress. U.S. textbooks have long reinforced this narrative, describing North America as a “virgin” continent sparsely populated by “savages.” This same logic appears in Israeli settler colonialism, where early Zionist leaders depicted Palestine as empty or ruined land. Research by Noga Kadman shows that hundreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed or erased after 1948 to promote the myth of an uninhabited land.
During the 2023–2024 war in Gaza, Israel bombed universities and cultural institutions in what some observers call “scholasticide”—a targeted effort to erase Palestinian history and identity. The UN’s Human Rights Council expressed concern about this practice, noting its impact on Palestinians’ claim to peoplehood and statehood.
Resistance Through Education
Liberation education
movements and postcolonial struggle.
Throughout the chapter, the author underscores the continuity between colonialism and fascism. Drawing on thinkers like Aimé Césaire and Hannah Arendt, the text shows that the techniques of domination—erasing histories, dehumanizing others, weaponizing education—are shared across systems of racial, religious, and national supremacy. Whether through British imperialism, American settler colonialism, or Israeli nationalism, identity-based ideologies use education as a mechanism for control.
Ultimately, the chapter reveals that colonial education is not merely about ignorance—it is about intentional distortion. It is designed to undermine resistance, delegitimize native claims, and perpetuate the colonizer’s supremacy. Recognizing and reversing these distortions is essential to decolonization and to restoring dignity and autonomy to historically oppressed peoples.
3 - The Nationalist Project
Innocence and Myth in National Identity
Nations
build stories of exceptionalism and victimhood.
This chapter examines how nationalist ideologies—particularly supremacist forms—have historically shaped education systems, justified colonialism, and fueled fascist politics. The author distinguishes between various forms of nationalism: supremacist nationalism (both universalist and non-universalist), anti-colonial nationalism, and civic or liberal nationalism. While nationalism is often assumed to be inherently hostile, the chapter highlights that it can also serve inclusive, democratic ends—depending on how history is told and identity is constructed.
Scapegoating and Exclusion of “Others”
Immigrants,
minorities, and dissenters framed as threats.
Supremacist nationalism, rooted in claims of cultural or racial superiority, underpins many colonial and fascist projects. It erases or distorts histories to legitimize conquest and domination. In contrast, anti-colonial nationalism—seen in movements like the Mau Mau rebellion or post-war Germany's democratic reconstruction—can foster solidarity and justice. However, the author warns that even nationalisms born from oppression may devolve into supremacist forms once in power, as seen in Hindu nationalism in India and Zionist nationalism in Israel.
The chapter critiques American exceptionalism as a dominant form of racial and religious supremacist nationalism. It shows how this narrative whitewashes the genocidal violence of colonization and slavery while elevating white Christian identity as foundational to national virtue. Textbooks, especially in conservative regions, have long promoted this sanitized version of history. PragerU, for example, distributes videos that downplay slavery’s horrors, erase Black agency, and glorify figures like Columbus, echoing earlier propaganda like Virginia’s state-sanctioned textbooks from the Jim Crow era.
Through examples from Russia, India, Israel, and Rwanda, the author demonstrates how educational systems are critical to nationalist myth-making. Russia’s denial of Ukrainian nationhood is not based on racial or religious difference but on the assertion that Ukrainians are "really" Russians. This erasure of identity underlies both Russia’s military aggression and its educational propaganda, which casts invasions as peaceful reunifications.
The author underscores that supremacist nationalism is not always racial—it may be religious or cultural—and its myths often invert atrocities into moral triumphs. For instance, Candace Owens’ PragerU videos claim that white men ended slavery, dismissing Black resistance and Haiti’s early abolition. Similarly, India’s current Hindu nationalist textbooks obscure Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu extremist and sanitize colonial violence against Muslims and Christians.
White Christian Nationalism and the American Context - American exceptionalism reframed into a supremacist narrative.
Despite these dangers, the author argues that nationalism need not be supremacist. J. A. Hobson and Émile Durkheim envisioned anti-colonial, civic-oriented nationalisms grounded in equality, cooperation, and internal development. West Germany’s post-war education system—focused on democratic values and historical accountability—illustrates one such model, although it too had blind spots, such as minimizing the Holocaust by Bullets.
In conclusion, nationalism is an imagined community, but what is imagined matters. Supremacist nationalism turns history into mythology to justify domination and violence, while anti-colonial nationalism can foster solidarity, justice, and democratic resilience. Education is central to either path. Whether fostering myth or truth, it shapes how nations remember their past and envision their future.
4 - From Supremacism to Fascism
Supremacist Ideology as a Gateway
How racial and
cultural hierarchies lay the foundation for fascism.
This chapter explores the ideological development and global variations of nationalism, particularly how supremacist forms underpin colonialism and can evolve into fascism. Drawing from historical, philosophical, and educational contexts, it shows how nationalist myths shape both self-image and national policy.
The idea of the nation as a cultural and moral entity, tied to language and history, is traced back to thinkers like Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who idealized the German language and heritage, and Herder, who emphasized the incommensurability of cultures. Benedict Anderson’s theory of the “imagined community” is central, suggesting nations are modern constructs, reinforced by print capitalism and shared myths.
Supremacist nationalism, whether universalist (justifying domination in the name of civilization) or non-universalist (justifying power through force), fueled colonial expansion and genocides. Anti-colonial nationalism, while often oppositional to these forms, can itself become supremacist if it turns oppressive once in power—illustrated in post-independence India and Israel.
In the U.S., supremacist nationalism is closely tied to American exceptionalism, which obscures slavery, indigenous genocide, and structural racism. Examples include 20th-century Virginia textbooks that portrayed enslaved Black Americans as content, and modern-day PragerU videos that glorify colonial figures like Columbus or distort the history of slavery by downplaying Black resistance and overstating white abolitionist contributions. Education policies in states like Texas and Florida, influenced by political actors and conservative media figures, continue these trends by banning instruction on racism and LGBTQ issues.
The narrative argues that supremacist nationalism thrives on historical erasure, and U.S. textbooks often reduce complex figures like Martin Luther King Jr. to a colorblind ideal while ignoring systemic inequality. Similarly, Russian educational policy erases atrocities like the Holodomor and rewrites its invasion of Ukraine as peaceful reintegration, while India under Modi has rewritten textbooks to obscure the Hindu nationalist assassination of Gandhi.
Mainstreaming Extremism
Politicians using dog
whistles and policy to legitimize supremacism.
The transition from supremacist nationalism to fascism is marked by five educational themes: national greatness, national purity, national innocence, strict gender roles, and vilification of the left. Nazi Germany exemplified these themes by transforming schools into ideological institutions that emphasized Aryan supremacy, militarism, and traditional roles for women. Hitler linked education, national identity, and demographic anxiety—especially fears of racial replacement—into a unified fascist worldview.
Great Replacement Theory, in which minorities and immigrants are framed as tools of national subversion, is shown to be a powerful fascist trope, motivating both historical genocides and recent mass killings. The ideology portrays multiculturalism, immigration, and progressive values as existential threats to a pure national core. In the U.S., this manifests in rhetoric about voter fraud, immigration, and the suppression of Black political power, often under racially neutral legal pretenses.
The fascist fixation on gender is also prominent. Weimar Germany’s progressive era was met with a Nazi backlash glorifying motherhood and opposing women’s education and work. Similar ideological currents persist today in “tradwife” movements and far-right educational institutions like Hillsdale College. LGBTQ people, in fascist thought, become ideal internal enemies—assimilated yet deviant—targeted by censorship and exclusion in school curricula.
Fascist Mobilization and the Turn to Violence
The
normalization of hate and conspiracies into political action.
Fascist education vilifies the political left, casting Marxism and socialism as existential threats and labeling any inclusion of minority perspectives as subversive. Attacks on “critical race theory” and “gender ideology” continue this tradition, presenting inclusive education as a danger to national purity.
The text concludes that fascism thrives when nationalism focuses on greatness, purity, and grievance. Without a commitment to anti-colonial and pluralistic education, nations remain vulnerable to fascist ideologies that justify violence, suppression, and authoritarian rule in the name of national myth.
5 - Anti-Education
Undermining Public Education
Discrediting and
dismantling universities and public schools.
This chapter explores how fascist and authoritarian movements go beyond manipulating curricula to advance their ideologies—they increasingly pursue the destruction of public education itself, a strategy termed anti-education. Unlike fascist education, which imposes a singular historical narrative to justify hierarchy and mobilize mass support for authoritarian goals, anti-education is about demobilization: fragmenting society, fostering ignorance, and eliminating the possibility of democratic solidarity.
The attack on education is especially visible in the U.S., where right-wing politicians who graduated from elite universities like Harvard and Yale now rail against these institutions as corrupt, leftist, or Marxist. Figures such as Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, and Elise Stefanik, despite having benefited from these schools, accuse them of being anti-American and ideologically dangerous. Their attacks are not based in genuine populism but in performative anti-elitism, masking efforts to delegitimize universities that foster critical thought and pluralism.
Weaponizing Cultural Backlash
Anti-CRT, DEI panic,
and authoritarian control of curricula.
These campaigns intensified in response to the 2023 Gaza war, where student protests on U.S. campuses condemned Israel’s actions. Right-wing figures like Stefanik seized the moment, framing student protests as antisemitic threats and interrogating university presidents in congressional hearings. The politically charged atmosphere led to resignations, most notably Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, after a campaign driven by accusations of plagiarism and amplified by far-right strategist Christopher Rufo. Rufo openly admitted to using this strategy as a scalable political tool.
This method—targeting individuals to intimidate institutions—echoes the McCarthyist purges of the mid-20th century. In Columbia University’s case, President Minouche Shafik responded to congressional pressure by cracking down on protests, triggering further unrest and police action on campuses nationwide. These incidents demonstrate how moral panic, especially around antisemitism or “wokeness,” can be weaponized to erode academic freedom and silence dissent.
The U.S. is not alone in this trend. India’s Hindu nationalist government under Prime Minister Modi has similarly targeted top universities. Professors have been silenced, students arrested, and elite institutions infiltrated or reshaped to suppress liberal or minority-affirming perspectives. Private institutions like Ashoka University have also been pressured, as seen in the forced resignation of political theorist Pratap Bhanu Mehta. These patterns reveal a global strategy: discredit universities, suppress dissent, and consolidate ideological control.
From Demobilization to Authoritarian Control - Anti-education as a means to suppress dissent and civic engagement.
While some critics of education come from fascist impulses to remake it in their own image, others—particularly right-wing libertarians—seek to dismantle public education altogether. They view public goods, including schools, as threats to market freedom and elite wealth. Betsy DeVos and her family, long-time opponents of public education, promoted school vouchers, funded pro-privatization think tanks like the Mackinac Center, and supported policies that gutted public infrastructure—often with devastating results, as seen in Flint, Michigan.
This alliance between authoritarian and libertarian forces converges on education. Both aim to strip it of its democratic potential. The former seeks to repurpose education into nationalist indoctrination; the latter wants to eliminate it, shifting responsibility back to the family and private institutions, reinforcing patriarchal and religious control.
The danger of anti-education lies in its success. A fragmented educational landscape, devoid of shared history or civic understanding, leaves citizens unable to organize, resist, or even communicate effectively across divisions. It nurtures apathy, not action—an ideal environment for authoritarian rule.
Ultimately, the chapter warns that while fascist education mobilizes for violence, anti-education disarms democracy itself. If left unchecked, it can destroy the very possibility of a unified, informed citizenry capable of defending equality, justice, or truth.
6 - Classical Education
The Double-Edged Sword of the Western Canon
Classical texts can uphold both democratic and fascist values.
This chapter explores the complex legacy of classical education, which draws from Ancient Greek, Roman, and Enlightenment texts, and its contested role in both liberatory and authoritarian educational traditions. While proponents argue that classical education fosters critical thinking, civic virtue, and humanistic values, it has also historically been co-opted by far-right and fascist ideologies to assert cultural superiority and justify hierarchies.
The chapter opens by juxtaposing inspiring quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois and Toni Morrison with Aristotle’s chilling declaration that some are "marked out for subjection." This frames the dual nature of classical education: it can inspire democratic ideals or reinforce systems of domination. Fascist and authoritarian regimes, such as the Nazis, often celebrated classical civilization—especially Roman order and Greek aesthetics—as ancestral to their own national identities. Hitler, for instance, explicitly linked German greatness to Hellenic ideals, while Nazi racial theorists went so far as to claim that the Greeks and Romans were actually ancient Germans.
Historical Misuse by Fascists
Nazi and modern
far-right distortions of the Greco-Roman legacy.
This pattern of appropriating classical education continues today. In the U.S., institutions like Hillsdale College promote “classical education” as a counter to “wokeness,” presenting it as a return to Western greatness rooted in supply-side economics and nationalist interpretations of the American founding. However, this version flattens classical inquiry into a tool for cultural indoctrination, mimicking the fascist tendency to weaponize historical texts to legitimize present-day power structures.
Yet classical education need not serve reactionary aims. When taught as a practice of critical inquiry, it can challenge dehumanization, raise profound questions about justice, and offer students tools to resist simplistic or supremacist narratives. Figures like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw value in teaching Plato, Aristotle, and Enlightenment philosophers to help students engage deeply with justice and moral philosophy. Likewise, classical historians like Thucydides illuminate the dark side of democracy and empire, as in the example of Cleon, who justified genocide through populist demagoguery—an ancient precursor to modern hate speech tactics.
Still, the chapter critiques the Enlightenment’s blind spots. Many Enlightenment thinkers, including Locke, Kant, Hume, and Rousseau, advanced ideals like reason and personhood while excluding women and nonwhite peoples from these ideals. The critique, developed by scholars like Charles Mills and Toni Morrison, is that Enlightenment values such as autonomy, objectivity, and freedom were often defined in ways that enabled slavery and colonialism. As such, these ideals are not neutral; they are historically entangled with white supremacy and patriarchy.
The Democratic Potential of Critical Inquiry
Reclaiming classical education through dialogue, not veneration.
Ultimately, the chapter argues that classical education should not be rejected wholesale, but neither should it be idealized. It is not the canon itself but how it is taught that matters. When used to venerate a mythic Western lineage, classical education becomes a tool for fascist and colonial domination. When treated as a site of critical engagement and dialectic, it can foster democratic and pluralistic values. The challenge, then, is not merely defending or attacking classical education, but reinterpreting it through practices that resist hierarchy and enable genuine understanding across difference.
7 - Reclaiming History
Memory as Resistance
Historical truth-telling
against authoritarian mythmaking.
The final chapter of the book makes the case that education is not just about the transfer of knowledge, but also about the construction of historical memory—and that this memory can either serve democracy or authoritarianism. It focuses on the political stakes of who controls historical narratives and how efforts to reclaim suppressed histories become essential to resisting fascist politics.
A key example is Russia’s Memorial organization, which sought to document and commemorate victims of Stalinist repression. Despite its international acclaim and eventual receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Russian government systematically dismantled the organization, imprisoned one of its lead researchers, and shut it down. This reflects a broader authoritarian instinct: to suppress investigations into historical crimes, particularly those that undermine nationalist myths of innocence or greatness.
This strategy is not unique to Russia. Around the world, authoritarian movements erase uncomfortable histories while glorifying violent or oppressive figures. In the United States, this same pattern emerges in the backlash against efforts to integrate Black American history, labor history, and other marginalized perspectives into public education. W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America is highlighted as an early and powerful response to the myth that Black political failure caused the end of Reconstruction, rather than white supremacist terror and abandonment by Northern whites. Du Bois documented how formerly enslaved people freed themselves and shaped the post-war political landscape, correcting a deliberate distortion that had justified Jim Crow for decades.
The chapter explores how such myths persist into the present—evident, for instance, in racist attacks on cities like Atlanta and Baltimore or on public figures labeled “DEI hires.” These attacks echo 19th- and 20th-century portrayals of Black leaders as inherently corrupt or incompetent.
Black, Indigenous, and Global Reclamation Movements - Struggles to preserve erased histories (Du Bois, Kenyatta, Zinn).
Reclaiming history also means confronting how classical education, as traditionally taught, has ignored or condemned non-white and non-male contributions. Scholars like Carter G. Woodson and projects like the 1619 Project and the Zinn Education Project aim to correct this by highlighting histories from the perspective of the oppressed. These efforts are met with organized opposition by conservative politicians and think tanks, which seek to restrict educational content that challenges national myths.
International examples reinforce the point: the Polish right-wing government censored the Museum of the Second World War for placing Polish suffering in a broader context, while in Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta’s anthropological work defended Kikuyu culture against colonial erasure. In Alabama, lawmakers threatened to defund the state archives for including LGBTQ history.
The Democratic Role of Historical Literacy
Civic
compassion and democracy require understanding injustice.
The chapter concludes with a deeply personal reflection on the author’s own family history as Jewish refugees from fascist regimes. His father’s concept of “civic compassion”—the ability to imaginatively understand the lives of others—emerges as a guiding educational ideal. Compassion, he argues, must replace abstract calls for “unity,” especially in pluralistic societies.
Reclaiming history is ultimately presented as both a political act and a moral one. In the face of authoritarian mythmaking, reclaiming marginalized truths is a way to defend democratic values. By preserving the histories of those whom dominant narratives have erased, democratic education resists fascism and fosters the civic empathy needed to sustain political equality.
Epilogue
Education and the Fight for Freedom
Truth vs.
propaganda as the heart of democratic survival.
The epilogue reinforces the central thesis of the book: that fascism survives on lies, myth-making, and the suppression of critical inquiry—and that education, journalism, and public knowledge are democracy’s strongest defenses. Stanley begins by drawing attention to Russia’s 2024 election, widely regarded as fraudulent, and asserts that the population’s acceptance of misinformation is itself a condition of their unfreedom. The manipulation of information and the banning of crucial concepts—such as structural racism, human rights, or climate change—is not just incidental to authoritarianism; it is foundational to its success.
Education, the author argues, is more than the transmission of facts. In a democracy, it is an exercise in agency and self-rule, offering the tools needed to question tradition rather than become enslaved to it. But authoritarians exploit moments when educational critique threatens entrenched myths. They crack down on schools and universities as subversive, fearing that open inquiry will expose the falsehoods upon which their power depends. The decline of state support for public education and rising tuition costs further alienate people from the institutions that could empower them.
Global Case Studies: Ukraine, Russia, the U.S.
Modern education wars in authoritarian and democratic contexts.
Stanley connects past fascist tactics with modern developments, including AI-generated misinformation and deepfakes that blur the line between fact and fiction. Without the capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood, democratic deliberation collapses. As in Myanmar, where misinformation runs unchecked due to the absence of a free press, the consequences of an eroded information ecosystem can be catastrophic.
Despite this grim assessment, Stanley insists that the struggle against authoritarianism is not new. He argues that the recurrence of these threats is evidence that we still live in a democracy—one worth defending. The resistance to fascist narratives takes place in classrooms, newsrooms, and protests. Educators and investigative journalists are the first to be targeted by authoritarian regimes precisely because of their role in sustaining public truth and democratic agency.
The author concludes with a personal note: as he prepares to lecture in Ukraine—where democratic education is literally under siege by an invading fascist regime—he underscores that the fight against authoritarianism is both global and local. Russian propaganda portrays Ukrainians as culturally illegitimate and historically invisible, providing ideological justification for war. This, he stresses, is why reclaiming truth in education is central to resisting fascism.
The epilogue closes on the eve of the American 2024 election. Stanley warns that authoritarianism in the U.S. may not come from without, but from within—a populist movement redefining American identity through false claims about capitalism, Christianity, and “American values.” The threat is real, but so too is the possibility of reclaiming a different American story: one rooted in democracy, equality, and mutual human recognition.
Democracy’s Last Line of Defense
Civic compassion,
solidarity, and critical inquiry as tools of resistance.
Drawing from his own family’s history—descendants of Holocaust survivors, enslaved Americans, and colonized Kikuyu—Stanley ends with a call to protect the human bonds of empathy and civic compassion. These are the foundations of democratic resistance against fascism and the hope for a freer future.
Complete Book Synthesis: Education at the Front Line of Fascism and Democracy
At its core, How Fascism Works is not just a book about politics or history—it is a sustained argument that education is the decisive terrain upon which democracy is either fortified or dismantled. Across its chapters, the book shows how fascist and authoritarian movements use myths, lies, and historical distortions to mobilize hierarchies of value, weaken democratic solidarity, and ultimately create a populace incapable of acting freely. It also illustrates how democratic education—rooted in critical inquiry, shared historical understanding, and civic compassion—can be our most powerful defense.
1. The Architecture of Authoritarianism
The book begins by detailing the mechanisms through which authoritarian regimes and movements hollow out democracy from within. As shown in [Chapter 1], authoritarian leaders rarely announce their true intentions. Instead, they exploit democratic systems while slowly replacing truth with myth, institutions with loyalist puppets, and laws with norms of fear. Language becomes a tool of distortion rather than discourse, a means of controlling reality itself.
This trend is not uniquely American or Russian or even modern—it is a recurring pattern of history, as [Chapter 2] outlines through colonial education systems. Colonizers dehumanized entire populations by teaching them to view themselves as inferior. This psychic colonization served not only to entrench power but to disconnect the colonized from their own past, values, and identity.
2. National Myths and the Manufacturing of Innocence
The nationalist project, described in [Chapter 3], takes this one step further by crafting national identities rooted in innocence, exceptionalism, and grievance. Fascist movements depend on a mythology of a once-great nation betrayed by internal or external enemies—immigrants, minorities, intellectuals, or cosmopolitans. These myths justify exclusion and domination, often through the lens of religious or racial superiority, seen especially in American white Christian nationalism.
[Chapter 4] charts the trajectory from supremacist narratives into full-blown fascism, where these myths are not just rhetorical but mobilized into law, policy, and violence. Fascism doesn’t emerge suddenly—it creeps in through normalizing inequality, targeting pluralism, and casting dissent as betrayal.
3. Education as Both Target and Weapon
[Chapters 5] and 6 place education at the center of this ideological struggle. Far-right movements seek either to reshape education to serve myth (as in the case of classical education co-opted to support nationalist pride) or to destroy education altogether when it becomes too democratic and inclusive. The attack on public schools, teachers, and universities—especially those teaching about race, gender, or empire—is an attack on the very possibility of shared reality.
[Chapter 6], on classical education, reveals that even intellectual traditions rooted in ideals like reason, virtue, and liberty can be co-opted into hierarchies when they are taught as cultural inheritance rather than critical inquiry. The classical canon can serve as a weapon of exclusion or a tool of emancipation—its value depends on how it is taught and to whom it is accessible.
4. Reclaiming the Past to Secure the Future
[Chapter 7] makes clear that the struggle for historical truth is the struggle for democracy. Reclaiming erased histories—of the enslaved, the colonized, the marginalized—is not about guilt or resentment, but about restoring agency, dignity, and civic compassion. From W. E. B. Du Bois to the 1619 Project, from Kikuyu nationalism to queer archives in Alabama, the chapter underscores how authoritarianism fears memory. Reclaiming history interrupts myths of national purity and racial innocence—and it enables solidarity across difference.
This work is not abstract. It is institutional, generational, and often dangerous. It is also deeply hopeful. Education that builds civic friendship and the capacity to understand others becomes the cornerstone of a multi-racial democracy.
5. The Final Battleground: Truth vs. Myth
[The epilogue] ties these threads together with contemporary urgency. As authoritarianism rises around the globe—from Russia to Florida—democracies face both external threats and internal rot. The control of education, history, and language is not merely a cultural battle—it is the political battle.
To sustain democracy, we must resist authoritarian distortions of history and reality. We must reject neutrality as an empty myth and instead embrace education that takes moral stances, that cultivates compassion, and that helps people imagine worlds beyond inherited injustice.
Conclusion: A Democratic Education for a Democratic Future
The book ultimately insists that education is not peripheral to politics—it is the heart of politics. A citizenry that cannot distinguish truth from fiction, that is denied the ability to see itself and others in history, will not be capable of self-rule.
Fascism and authoritarianism begin by reshaping how people understand themselves and their past. But so does democracy. To defend one, we must commit to teaching the truth, practicing civic compassion, and preparing new generations not for obedience—but for judgment, dissent, and solidarity.
That is the mission of democratic education. And that, Stanley argues, is what is at stake.
