Bertram Gross

FRIENDLY FASCISM

Peter Dale Scott

Nancy Howell Lee

From creeping capitalism to abortion to government corruption, these three books shed light on controversial topics that are too often left in the dark. Curated by NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, the Forbidden Bookshelf series resurrects books from America’s repressed history. All touching on bold and debated topics, these three books are more relevant today than ever. Friendly Fascism: Bertram Gross, a presidential adviser in the New Deal era, explores the insidious way that capitalist politics could subvert America’s constitutional democracy. First published over three decades ago, this book predicted the threats and realities that occur when big business and big government become bedfellows, while demonstrating how US citizens can build a truer democracy. The Search for an Abortionist: Nancy Howell Lee’s eye-opening account reveals the dangerous and illegal options for women seeking an abortion before Roe v. Wade. Based on interviews with 114 women, this groundbreaking work takes an intimate look at the abortion process. Dallas ’63: Peter Dale Scott exposes the deep state, an intricate network within the American government, linking Wall Street influence, corrupt bureaucracy, and the military-industrial complex. Since World War II, its power has grown unchecked, and nowhere has it been more apparent than at Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. Scott details the CIA and FBI’s involvement in the JFK assassination, and shows how events like Watergate, the Iran–Contra affair, and 9/11 are all connected to this behind-the-scenes web of corruption.

Friendly Fascism, The Search for an Abortionist, and Dallas '63

Forbidden Bookshelf's Resistance in America Collection

A look at corporate authoritarianism that William Shirer called “the best thing I’ve ever seen on how America might go fascist democratically.” In 1980, US capitalist politics wore a “nice-guy mask,” a troubling disguise to cover up a creeping despotism in which the ultra-rich and corporate overseers were merging with a centralized state power in order to manage the populace. This immanent corporate authoritarianism threatened to subvert constitutional democracy. But unlike the violent and sudden usurpations that led to fascism in the days of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese empire builders, this new “smiling” American breed of fascism was gaining ground through gradual and silent infringements on the freedoms of the American people. First published over three decades ago, Friendly Fascism is uncannily predictive of the threats and realities of current political and economic power trends. Author Bertram Gross, a presidential adviser during the New Deal era, traces the history and logic of declining democracy in First World countries and pinpoints capitalist transnational growth and inappropriate responses to global crises as the sources of late twentieth-century despotism in America. Gross issues ever-urgent warnings about what happens when big business and big government become bedfellows—chronic inflation, recurring recession, overt and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of the environment—and simultaneously proffers a practical shift of perspective that could help US citizens build a truer democracy. He imagines an America in which heroes are no longer needed and the leadership is a group of non-elitists who “recognize the ignorance of the wise as well as the wisdom of the ignorant.”

Bertram Gross

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