| Author/Contributor(s): | Chapman, Robert |
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Date: | 4/20/2027 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| Condition: | NEW |
'Racial hygiene' is synonymous with Nazi Germany, but is this ideological preoccupation particular to the historical fascism of that time and place? What is the role of health in the fascist imagination today?
Connecting the dots between Make America Healthy Again (MAHA), the wellness to far-right pipeline, fascist fitness club franchises and public health conspiracy theories, Robert Chapman offers a novel theory of 'health fascism', tracing its modern roots from Mussolini to the manosphere.
Chapman argues that fascism is a health movement which arises in moments of capitalist health crisis, promising to restore the vitality of the race and nation. Fusing physical discipline and mental purity with authoritarian, racist and nationalist politics, it wields visions of health in order to both mobilise and divide—and ultimately, to manufacture consent for oppression, conquest and genocide.
Pure Fantasies is a warning that the politics of health must be central to movements resisting the rise of fascism in the decisive years to come. The struggle for collective health under capitalism is and always has been a struggle for freedom against fascism.