The First Fascist

Brought to you by Penguin.

Who was the first fascist? Decades before Mussolini, the Marquis de Mores was the first populist and openly antisemitic leader in the Western world. A key figure behind the Dreyfus affair, he took France by storm with his inflammatory media rhetoric and violent stunts. Mores 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.

Driven by personal ambition and the loss of aristocratic status in modern, democratic France, Mores embarked on an extraordinary career spanning four continents: from cattle ranching on the American frontier to building a railway in the jungles of Indochina. But his efforts were dogged by failure. Blaming Jewish machinations for his defeats, he returned to France, where he soon controlled a large, violent militia of disgruntled workers motivated to fight minorities on behalf of the white proletariat. His rapid political rise was torpedoed by a highly publicized financial scandal, but his shadow continued to loom. In Vichy France, as Jews were being deported to Auschwitz, officials would gather to celebrate Mores's memory.

In The First Fascist, award-winning historian Sergio Luzzatto explores the untold story of the rise and fall of the Marquis as well as his ominous legacy. Drawing on a wealth of original sources, Luzzatto shows how Mores both anticipated and propelled the fascist politics that erupted in the twentieth century, the reverberations of which are still felt powerfully today.

© Sergio Luzzatto 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026