Many American fascist groups arose in the 1930s out of the Northern Ku Klux Klan (KKK) of the 1920s. We can see the continuity by using British socialist theorist Raymond Williams’ concept, a “structure of feeling.” The 1920s KKK targeted Catholic, Jewish, and other non-white Protestant immigrants – though never abandoning its anti-Black racism – and the fascists narrowed their target to Jews alone, but common to both was the construction of fear and then anger. Yet a fundamental difference between the Klan and the fascists is equally important: the Northern Klan was a mass, largely nonviolent movement that won major victories by relying on electoral politics, while the small fascist groups used violence as their primary tactic. Too often “fascism” has been used as a condemnation without specific content. Examining the Ku Klux Klan and the fascists side by side and focusing on what fascist groups did can yield better analyses. While there are commonalities among fascists in different contexts and different historical moments, the term is most useful when understood as a “cluster concept”: a cluster of ideas, values, and actions not all of which will be found in each exemplar of fascism.

Chapter 7 publishes the text of Pitcairneana, MS Eng 1114 in the Houghton Library, Harvard. In it, a spokesman for atheism, ‘Incredulous’, argues against ‘Credulous’, a spokesman for Christian orthodoxy, and makes various points, notably concerning the relationship between spiritual and non-spiritual bodies and the issue of motion being intrinsic to matter; he also argues in favour of the world’s being eternal rather than the result of a divine act of creation and offers a cyclical rather than progressive view of human development. The authors referred to in the dialogue include Samuel Clarke, Henry More, John Toland and Robert Hooke, while the treatise ends by invoking ‘axioms’ in an essentially Newtonian mode.

Johnson’s stand against prejudice is reflected in the critical and editorial aspects of his “Shakespeare.” His editions contain the distinguished Preface and notes and express Johnson’s dialogue with earlier editions. This chapter considers Johnson on the methods of Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton and suggests the collaborative nature of Johnson’s contributions. Defending “the dull duty of an editor,” Johnson concedes the task is impossible, and his later editions display second thoughts, generally favoring conservative readings. Johnson’s notes are varied and clarify meanings through paraphrase, with examples from Measure for Measure and Othello, the latter exemplifying Johnson’s sensitivity to female suffering. The central criterion of Johnson’s criticism – “general nature” – is then addressed. The essay concludes with detailed analysis of the death of Cardinal Beaufort from Henry VI Part 2, a scene heavily marked up by Johnson in his Warburton and described as “scarcely the work of any pen but Shakespeare’s.”

This conclusion sums up the book and how the chapters interrelate. The importance of respectful language is discussed, as a human rights issue. Prejudice is talked about as a problem that we will all face, hence the need for compassion. We close by exploring how offensive language can be at the root of social problems, but on the other hand, how it can also unite people and foster understanding, tolerance, and equality.

A cherished common law notion is equality before the law. This notion has shaped and defined Australian laws, and is important to law’s capacity to produce justice because it requires that everyone is treated the same before the law. However, equality before the law has not produced effective social justice and equality in Australia: demographic and socio-economic indicators consistently paint a picture of broad social inequality and a growing poverty gap — rather than one of an egalitarian society in which everyone achieves the same justice.

This chapter focuses on dramatizations of what John Marshall identifies as the central issue of the early Enlightenment, religious toleration, also a crucial pillar of Whig ideology. Addison and Steele were both advocates of toleration, and their fellow dramatists were no less enthusiastic. I analyse John Hughes’s The Siege of Damascus (1718), a play that remained widely popular through the century, famous for its tense scene of religious testing. The play was based on the work of pioneering Arabist Simon Ockley and offers an object lesson in the way a respectful account of Arab history was put into wide circulation. Other plays that used Near Eastern settings, such as Aaron Hill’s Zara (1735) and James Thomson’s Edward and Eleonora (1739) shared Hughes’s tolerationist agenda. By contrast, I also present plays with a much more conservative perspective on religious difference, including John Brown’s Barbarossa (1754).