My feelings of Albright’s work are complex. On one hand, her background as both a refugee of fascism and as a US diplomat give her unique and valuable insight into fascism’s rise and international relations. On the other hand, her deeply pro-America, moderate centrist ideology is painfully unexamined and leaves much to be desired.

Albright is quick to paint broad strokes over history and the political spectrum, claiming at the end of the day the edges of the political left and right are equally extreme and equally dangerous. To support this, she cites the great death and suffering under both the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini and the communist regime under Stalin. However, she fails to acknowledge that it is less political opinion and more authoritarianism (in any form) that leads to such evil. In Russia, Lenin’s initial revolt sought to allow a fair and equal system for all citizens. This was dashed when Lenin died in 1924, leaving a vacuum at the head of the party eventually won by Stalin after he beat other potential party heads at the political game. This is very similar to the way Albright herself discusses the fascist rise to power: Hitler and Mussolini both used democratic processes just enough to gain power, and then twisted and de-clawed them so that their regime could reign absolute. My question, then, is why Albright feels that the twisting of the Communist uprising in Russia implies an inherent flaw in socialist ideology while simultaneously not claiming the same ideological flaw in democratic proceedings?

This happens over and over, as she mentions events without seeming to recognize her bias. She intones the way both Mussolini and Hitler co-opted the rich, powerful and liberal people of their countries and set about squashing leftist resistance as soon as they had the power to do so. She mentions that liberal establishments felt caught between acquiescing to workers calls for equality and dignity and fascistic calls for power, and consistently chose fascism over the leftists. Why? Because of the two, one actually falls in line with the establishment system much better than the other. But Albright does not plumb these depths, instead white washing American international politics in the Cold War and beyond as “advocating for freedom” and being largely good. The most negative press she gives American foreign policy is that it has at times been “troubled”. Troubled indeed. This comes off to me as incredibly dismissive of the atrocities committed in Cambodia or Laos or the deceptive backstabbing and cruelty exhibited in Vietnam or Cuba, all of which are well documented. These are but a few examples of how American foreign policy was much more focused on maintaining its own hegemony than it was actually standing by the lauded principles of democracy and freedom. Why else would the US specifically attack Vietnam before it could hold a democratic election to determine its future if, as Albright claims, the US policy was about engendering freedom?

In short, Albright’s examples and commentary on how Fascism can infiltrate and spread in democratic society’s are the best part of the work, and why I give it 2 stars. They are definitely worth internalizing as we watch the world around us and hope to keep our political systems accountable. However, her clear political bent strikes me as lacking nuance, and her constant praise of not just democracy, but specifically the American brand of democracy, keeps her book from being something special.