Origins of Political Extremism: Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century and Beyond

Political extremism represents a destructive form of human expression responsible for over 100 million deaths during the twentieth century through extremist violence. Manus I. Midlarsky proposes that ephemeral gains and mortality salience form the foundation for understanding the origins of political extremism. He develops a theoretical framework based on these concepts to explain both the emergence of extremism and subsequent mass violence. Midlarsky applies this framework across multiple historical cases: the rise of Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian fascism; Nazism; radical Islamism; and Soviet, Chinese, and Cambodian communism. He also examines rampaging militaries in Japan, Pakistan, and Indonesia; extreme nationalism in Serbia, Croatia, the Ottoman Empire, and Rwanda; Polish anti-Semitism following World War II; and separatist violence in Sri Lanka.