The new edition of "Origins of fascist ideology" - the result of a thorough rewriting - is open to a broad introduction that looks at the receipt of this pioneering volume in the culture of Italian historiography and proposes a new general interpretation of fascism as a manifestation of a "totalitarian modernity. " Basing his investigation into a widespread recognition of the publications of the time, Gentile highlights the complex of beliefs, myths, programs in which the fascist ideology finds expression: the evolution of Mussolini's political positions (from socialism in) , The myths of the postwar period (from fear of the "enemy within" the mythologies veterans), antibolshevism, nationalism, the revolt against the modern world, the centrality of the state. Fascism, the author concludes, was a movement which aimed at a political and cultural revolution, whose goal was to build brand new organization of civil society and political system founded on the primacy of politics and the subordination of private to public . In other words, the fascist ideology was "the most comprehensive rationalization of the totalitarian state. "