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The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Not yet published
Expected 10 Feb 26A vivid biography of the nineteenth-century French-Italian aristocrat Marquis de Morès, the first political leader to master the blend of racialized hatred, cross-class solidarity, and paramilitary violence that Benito Mussolini would call “fascism.”
The Marquis de Morès was the first populist, white supremacist, and openly antisemitic leader in the Western world. A key figure behind the Dreyfus Affair, he took France by storm with his inflammatory rhetoric, media savvy, and violent stunts. Decades before Mussolini, Morès invoked the fasces—the ancient Roman bundle of wooden rods—to symbolize the society he wished to a union of all social classes against their enemy, the Jews.
Animated from his early years by personal ambition and the loss of aristocratic status in modern, democratic France, Morès embarked on an extraordinary career spanning four continents. He ventured to the American frontier and became a cattle rancher in the Dakotas; he set out to build a railway in the jungles of Indochina. But his efforts were dogged by failure—and he blamed Jewish machinations for his defeats. Embittered, he returned to France to pursue what he saw as the mission of an upper-class to fight Jews and other minorities on behalf of the white proletariat. Soon he controlled a large, violent militia of disgruntled workers.
As Sergio Luzzatto makes clear, Morès both anticipated and propelled the fascist politics that erupted in the twentieth century and still resonate powerfully in our own time. Morès’s rapid political rise was halted by financial scandal, but his shadow continued to loom. In Vichy France, as Jews were being deported to Auschwitz, officials would gather to celebrate Morès’s memory.
The Marquis de Morès was the first populist, white supremacist, and openly antisemitic leader in the Western world. A key figure behind the Dreyfus Affair, he took France by storm with his inflammatory rhetoric, media savvy, and violent stunts. Decades before Mussolini, Morès invoked the fasces—the ancient Roman bundle of wooden rods—to symbolize the society he wished to a union of all social classes against their enemy, the Jews.
Animated from his early years by personal ambition and the loss of aristocratic status in modern, democratic France, Morès embarked on an extraordinary career spanning four continents. He ventured to the American frontier and became a cattle rancher in the Dakotas; he set out to build a railway in the jungles of Indochina. But his efforts were dogged by failure—and he blamed Jewish machinations for his defeats. Embittered, he returned to France to pursue what he saw as the mission of an upper-class to fight Jews and other minorities on behalf of the white proletariat. Soon he controlled a large, violent militia of disgruntled workers.
As Sergio Luzzatto makes clear, Morès both anticipated and propelled the fascist politics that erupted in the twentieth century and still resonate powerfully in our own time. Morès’s rapid political rise was halted by financial scandal, but his shadow continued to loom. In Vichy France, as Jews were being deported to Auschwitz, officials would gather to celebrate Morès’s memory.
496 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication February 10, 2026
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About the author
Sergio Luzzatto
50 books18 followersSergio Luzzatto is the author of Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age, which won the prestigious Cundill Prize in History, and of The Body of Il Duce: Mussolini's Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy. A professor of history at the University of Turin, Luzzatto is a regular contributor to Il Sole 24 Ore.
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Review of advance copy
The First Fascist is a chilling, meticulously researched biography that exposes the ideological DNA of modern fascism by tracing it to one man long before the term entered common use. Sergio Luzzatto masterfully reconstructs the life of the Marquis de Morès, revealing how racialized hatred, populist manipulation, and political violence were fused into a dangerous formula decades before Mussolini gave it a name.
What makes this book especially powerful is its relevance. Luzzatto does not present Morès as an isolated historical curiosity, but as a prototype whose methods, media spectacle, scapegoating, cross-class demagoguery, continue to echo in contemporary politics. Written with narrative force and moral clarity, The First Fascist is an essential work for readers seeking to understand how extremist ideologies are born, normalized, and sustained across generations.
What makes this book especially powerful is its relevance. Luzzatto does not present Morès as an isolated historical curiosity, but as a prototype whose methods, media spectacle, scapegoating, cross-class demagoguery, continue to echo in contemporary politics. Written with narrative force and moral clarity, The First Fascist is an essential work for readers seeking to understand how extremist ideologies are born, normalized, and sustained across generations.
Displaying 1 of 1 review