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'''''Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics''''' is a [[Oswald Spengler|Spenglerian]] 1948 book by [[Francis Parker Yockey]], using the pen name Ulick Varange. The book scorned democracy, equality and ideas of [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], arguing for [[pan-Europeanism|pan-European]] [[fascism]] and metahistorical [[antisemitism]].{{Sfn|Rose|2021|p=67-79}}{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|p=76}}<ref name=":0" />{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|p=75}}<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Jeffrey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nNWbbhUYv8oC |title=Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right |date=2000 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-0340-3 |pages=42 |language=en}}</ref> ''Imperium'' was dedicated to [[Adolf Hitler]], who Yockey called "the hero of the Second World War".{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002}}
'''''Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics''''' is a [[Oswald Spengler|Spenglerian]] 1948 book by the American fascist [[Francis Parker Yockey]], using the pen name Ulick Varange, that calls for a [[Neo-Nazism|neo-Nazi]] pan-European empire.<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |last=Mostrom |first=Anthony |date=2020-08-08 |title=America's "Mein Kampf": Francis Parker Yockey and "Imperium" |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/americas-mein-kampf-francis-parker-yockey-imperium/ |url-status=live |access-date=2022-01-05 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books |language=en}}</ref>{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|p=75}}<ref name=":12">{{Cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Jeffrey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nNWbbhUYv8oC |title=Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right |date=2000 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-0340-3 |pages=42 |language=en}}</ref> The book was dedicated to [[Adolf Hitler]], who Yockey called "the hero of the Second World War".{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002}} The book scorns democracy, equality, and other [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] ideas; its main theme is a metahistorical [[antisemitism]];{{Sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|p=76}} and it asserts the [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] never happened.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mostrom |first=Anthony |date=2017-05-13 |title=The Fascist and the Preacher: Gerald L. K. Smith and Francis Parker Yockey in Cold War–Era Los Angeles |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-fascist-and-the-preacher-gerald-l-k-smith-and-francis-parker-yockey-in-cold-war-era-los-angeles/ |access-date=2022-05-01 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Martin A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/858861623 |title=The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists |date=2000 |isbn=978-1-135-28124-3 |location=New York |pages=94, 157 |oclc=858861623}}</ref>

== Influences ==
== Influences ==


Line 43: Line 44:
== Reception ==
== Reception ==


''Imperium'' has been called one of the most influential antisemitic books since Hitler's ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Atkins |first=Stephen E. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/624337327 |title=Holocaust denial as an international movement |date=2009 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-0-313-34539-5 |location=Westport, Conn. |pages=147 |oclc=624337327}}</ref> It influenced the American neo-Nazi [[James H. Madole]], the racial [[Odinist]] [[Else Christensen]], the fascist [[Christian Bouchet]] and the British neo-Nazi [[David Myatt]].{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|pp=5, 74, 76, 216, 221, 223, 226, 261}} Some others on the far right{{Who|date=April 2022}} considered ''Imperium'' the "impenetrable ramblings of a madman".<ref name=":1" /> The book's ideology was adopted by Willis Carto for the [[National Youth Alliance]] and some members of groups such as the [[Liberty Lobby]] (founded by Carto) and the [[American Independent Party]].<ref>{{harvnb|Maibaum|2003|pp=17}}</ref> [[Liberty Lobby]] and its spinoffs promoted Imperium as the ''Mein Kampf'' of postwar Nazism.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Martin A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/858861623 |title=The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists |date=2000 |isbn=978-1-135-28124-3 |location=New York |pages=94, 157 |oclc=858861623}}</ref>
''Imperium'' has been called one of the most influential antisemitic books since Hitler's ''[[Mein Kampf]]''.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Atkins |first=Stephen E. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/624337327 |title=Holocaust denial as an international movement |date=2009 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=978-0-313-34539-5 |location=Westport, Conn. |pages=147 |oclc=624337327}}</ref> It influenced the American neo-Nazi [[James H. Madole]], the racial [[Odinist]] [[Else Christensen]], the fascist [[Christian Bouchet]] and the British neo-Nazi [[David Myatt]].{{sfn|Goodrick-Clarke|2002|pp=5, 74, 76, 216, 221, 223, 226, 261}} Some others on the far right{{Who|date=April 2022}} considered ''Imperium'' the "impenetrable ramblings of a madman".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Jeffrey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nNWbbhUYv8oC |title=Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right |date=2000 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-0340-3 |pages=42 |language=en}}</ref> The book's ideology was adopted by Willis Carto for the [[National Youth Alliance]] and some members of groups such as the [[Liberty Lobby]] (founded by Carto) and the [[American Independent Party]].<ref>{{harvnb|Maibaum|2003|pp=17}}</ref> [[Liberty Lobby]] and its spinoffs promoted Imperium as the ''Mein Kampf'' of postwar Nazism.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Lee |first=Martin A. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/858861623 |title=The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists |date=2000 |isbn=978-1-135-28124-3 |location=New York |pages=94, 157 |oclc=858861623}}</ref>


Italian [[Hermeticism|hermetic philosopher]] [[Julius Evola]] praised Yockey's work.<ref name="Steiger">{{cite book |last1=Steiger |first1=Brad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3h6_na9j0tcC&pg=PA511 |title=Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier |last2=Steiger |first2=Sherry Hanson |publisher=Visible Ink Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-57859-174-9 |location=[[Canton Township, Michigan]] |page=511 |name-list-style=and}}</ref>{{Needs verification|date=April 2022}}
Italian [[Hermeticism|hermetic philosopher]] [[Julius Evola]] praised Yockey's work.<ref name="Steiger">{{cite book |last1=Steiger |first1=Brad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3h6_na9j0tcC&pg=PA511 |title=Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier |last2=Steiger |first2=Sherry Hanson |publisher=Visible Ink Press |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-57859-174-9 |location=[[Canton Township, Michigan]] |page=511 |name-list-style=and}}</ref>{{Needs verification|date=April 2022}}

Revision as of 14:04, 4 May 2022

Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics
AuthorFrancis Parker Yockey
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhilosophy of history
Political philosophy
Publication date
1948
Publication placeIreland

Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics is a Spenglerian 1948 book by the American fascist Francis Parker Yockey, using the pen name Ulick Varange, that calls for a neo-Nazi pan-European empire.[1][2][3] The book was dedicated to Adolf Hitler, who Yockey called "the hero of the Second World War".[4] The book scorns democracy, equality, and other Enlightenment ideas; its main theme is a metahistorical antisemitism;[5] and it asserts the Holocaust never happened.[6][7]

Influences

Yockey adopted Spenglerian ideas in Imperium,[8] although Yockey's extreme antisemitism differed him from Spengler.[9] Spengler's The Decline of the West was the most important single source.[10][11] Yockey's concept of the role of the state drew on Carl Schmitt's Friend–Enemy Thesis as explained in his 1927 The Concept of the Political.[12] Yockey heavily drew on Thomas Carlyle's great man theory, seeing the creative ability of heroic individuals as a vehicle for progress.[13]

Summary

Echoing the analogy of human life offered by Spengler's The Decline of The West, Yockey wrote of "High Cultures", describing them as organic beings, "a Life-form at the peak of the organic hierarchy of which plants, animals and men are the lower beings",[14] and arguing that they follow a pattern of birth, growth, maturity, fulfillment and death.[15] He asserted that West was the last remaining high culture of eight in world history.[citation needed] Yockey wrote that each high culture has a soul that seizes humans in its sphere of influence, and determines its religious expression, science, art forms, state structures, politics and morality throughout its life span.[16][17] He described races as "spirituo-biological" entities that adapt to changing needs of a culture.[18][15] He argued that civilization is not an end product of progress, but a certain phase in the life of each high culture, and that high cultures are moved by their will to power and a "spiritual drive" to fulfill "destiny" and "mission".[19] Yockey wrote that the West's fulfillment of its destiny was threatened by "cultural pathology", including interrelated sicknesses of "culture-parasitism", "culture-retardation" and "culture-distortion".[20] Yockey saw the influence of non-Western groups as corrupting to the Western culture.[21][failed verification] He argued that Jews were most harmful to the Western soul by aggravating a deeper crisis, allegedly promoting materialism, rationalism, liberalism, democracy, equality, feminism, capitalism and communism.[22][23][24][25] He considered the United States lost to the Western cause in "the American Revolution of 1933", the presidential victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, which he alleged was a Jewish seizure of political power, as opposed to "the European Revolution of 1933" represented by the rise of Hitler in Germany.[26] According to Yockey, Hitler set Europe toward a fulfillment of its destiny as a unified empire, which the United States sided with Russia to stop. Yockey decried the postwar trials by "extra-European forces" that he termed "show trials", and in an early example of Holocaust denial he claimed the gas chambers were faked to discredit the Nazis.[27] Seeing history of every high culture as guided by the "Spirit of the Age", corresponding to each life phase of high culture, Yockey considered fascism to be the expression of this spirit in the new epoch.[14][failed verification]

Publication

Yockey wrote Imperium at an inn in Brittas Bay, Ireland.[26] Imperium spanned 600 pages in two volumes.[28] In Yockey's pseudonym, Ulick was supposedly a Danish-Irish name, and Varange was a reference to Norsemen.[29]

Yockey invited Oswald Mosley, who also held Spenglerian views, to publish it in his name, but Mosley refused.[citation needed] Publication was financed by the Mosleyites Guy Chesham, Peter Huxley-Blythe and Baroness von Pflugl.[30]

The far-right activist and antisemite Willis Carto acquired the rights to Imperium from Westropa Press, and published it more widely in 1948.[31][32] The 1962 edition, published after Yockey's suicide in jail in 1960, included an introduction by Carto,[32] along with Revilo P. Oliver's positive review.[33][third-party source needed]

Reception

Imperium has been called one of the most influential antisemitic books since Hitler's Mein Kampf.[32][34] It influenced the American neo-Nazi James H. Madole, the racial Odinist Else Christensen, the fascist Christian Bouchet and the British neo-Nazi David Myatt.[35] Some others on the far right[who?] considered Imperium the "impenetrable ramblings of a madman".[36] The book's ideology was adopted by Willis Carto for the National Youth Alliance and some members of groups such as the Liberty Lobby (founded by Carto) and the American Independent Party.[37] Liberty Lobby and its spinoffs promoted Imperium as the Mein Kampf of postwar Nazism.[28]

Italian hermetic philosopher Julius Evola praised Yockey's work.[29][verification needed]

References

  1. ^ Mostrom, Anthony (2020-08-08). "America's "Mein Kampf": Francis Parker Yockey and "Imperium"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2022-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 75.
  3. ^ Kaplan, Jeffrey (2000). Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-7425-0340-3.
  4. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002.
  5. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, p. 76.
  6. ^ Mostrom, Anthony (2017-05-13). "The Fascist and the Preacher: Gerald L. K. Smith and Francis Parker Yockey in Cold War–Era Los Angeles". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
  7. ^ Lee, Martin A. (2000). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. New York. pp. 94, 157. ISBN 978-1-135-28124-3. OCLC 858861623.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ^ Reilly 2010
  9. ^ Lee 2013, p. 96.
  10. ^ Reilly 2010
  11. ^ Mulhall 2020, pp. 110
  12. ^ Mulhall, Joe (2020). British Fascism After the Holocaust: From the Birth of Denial to the Notting Hill Riots 1939–1958. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780429840258. p. 111
  13. ^ Rose 2021, p. 67-79.
  14. ^ a b Gardell 2003, pp. 51.
  15. ^ a b Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 260.
  16. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 260
  17. ^ Rose, Matthew (2021). A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300263084. p. 67-79
  18. ^ Maibaum 2003, pp. 15
  19. ^ Maibaum 2003, pp. 14–15
  20. ^ Gardell 2003, p. 169.
  21. ^ Reilly, John (2010-09-12). "Francis Parker Yockey's 'Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics'". Constantine Report. Retrieved 2022-04-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ^ Gardell 2003, pp. 51–52, 170.
  23. ^ Reilly 2010.
  24. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 76
  25. ^ Coogan, Kevin (2019). 'Lost Imperium? Yockey: 20 years later.' Review of Yockey: A Fascist Odyssey by Kerry Bolton (PDF). Lobster Magazine. p. 6.
  26. ^ a b Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 76
  27. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 76
  28. ^ a b Lee, Martin A. (2000). The Beast Reawakens: Fascism's Resurgence from Hitler's Spymasters to Today's Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists. New York. pp. 94, 157. ISBN 978-1-135-28124-3. OCLC 858861623.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  29. ^ a b Steiger, Brad and Steiger, Sherry Hanson (2006). Conspiracies and Secret Societies: The Complete Dossier. Canton Township, Michigan: Visible Ink Press. p. 511. ISBN 978-1-57859-174-9.
  30. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 77: "In 1949 Yockey's Mosleyite circle included Guy Chesham, Peter Huxley-Blythe and Baroness von Pflugl, who financed the publication of Imperium."
  31. ^ Durham, Martin (2007-11-13). White Rage: The Extreme Right and American Politics. Routledge. pp. 25, 26. ISBN 978-1-134-23181-2.
  32. ^ a b c Mostrom, Anthony (2020-08-08). "America's "Mein Kampf": Francis Parker Yockey and "Imperium"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2022-01-05.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  33. ^ Oliver, Revilo P. (1962). "Revilo P. Oliver › Introduction to Imperium". Noontide Press. Archived from the original on 21 November 2018. Retrieved 2022-01-05.
  34. ^ Atkins, Stephen E. (2009). Holocaust denial as an international movement. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-313-34539-5. OCLC 624337327.
  35. ^ Goodrick-Clarke 2002, pp. 5, 74, 76, 216, 221, 223, 226, 261.
  36. ^ Kaplan, Jeffrey (2000). Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-7425-0340-3.
  37. ^ Maibaum 2003, pp. 17

Sources

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