This is a very useful reference work that deserves to be in libraries and widely read. It is edited by Jens Rydgren, professor of sociology at the University of Stockholm, who brought together 33 scholars to analyse the rise of the radical right in European states and in Australia, Israel and Japan. Following the introduction, the book is divided into three sections: “Ideology and Discourse,” “Issues,” and “Case Studies.” Taken together, they pave the way for future studies of this growing phenomenon.

In his introductory essay, Rydgren provides a nuanced definition of the radical right, rejecting the view that it can be easily dismissed as a form of fascism, even though there are affinities with fascism (2, 6). Unfortunately, he also makes some odd assertions; for example, he states that “whereas fascism was oriented toward the future” and sought to create new societies, radical right parties are “oriented toward the past” and seek to “restore the status quo” (6). This is strange because Nazi intellectuals used the past to provide a sophisticated vision that pointed to a new future. This technique is used today by members of the German radical right that we interviewed. They use a vision of the past to create a lineage that provides hope for the future and make no secret of their admiration for Nazism, even while carefully distancing themselves from Hitler's genocidal policies. On another note, Rydgren and others recognize that some “new right” intellectuals are “inspired by Gramsci's notion of ‘cultural hegemony,’” which complicates things (3, 286).

Unfortunately, many contributors to this work tend to interpret the rise of the radical right as a product of things the contributors seem to consider social illusions, including economic uncertainty, migration, a lack of education and Islamophobia. Instead of asking how such issues turn people toward the radical right, as Uwe Backes does in his chapter (452–77), there is an underlying assumption that the problems themselves are illusory instead of a recognition that the radical right provides a distorted response to real issues that others often ignore. Therefore, by denying, or at least minimizing, the reality of these problems, some authors play a blame game. For example, in his otherwise helpful discussion of Islamophobia, Aristotle Kallis (42–60) briefly alludes to the rhetoric of “the Ottoman attacks on Vienna,” which he sees as a “symbolic legacy” and “figurative threat” to Europe that the radical right uses to create fear of Islam. Seen in this way, the radical right's appeal to historical events that happened over 300 years ago sounds ridiculous (49). What the argument overlooks is the importance of family memory. For example, the Armenian and (lesser-known) Greek genocides of 1914–1923 still haunt many people whose parents, grandparents or other relatives experienced them. Thus for people whose families were traumatized by relatively recent historical events, the Siege of Vienna confirms an ongoing historical pattern that devastated their families and creates fear for the future.

Another missing element in the discussion of Islamophobia is an acknowledgment that many Nazis admired Islam and that people like Himmler sought to form self-serving alliances with Muslims, as the Kaiserreich had done before them (Longerich, Reference Longerich2012: 267, 675–77; Strachan, Reference Motadel2001: 694–814). As a result, the Nazis recruited tens of thousands of Muslims to fight with the Wehrmacht in Eastern Europe (Motadel, Reference Poewe2014). Their presence in occupied lands left a memory that associates Islam with Nazism. This is not to suggest that Muslims are Nazis or that Islam leads to Nazism but rather to point out that the reaction of Europeans to Islam is complex and cannot be simply dismissed as a form of fantasy called “Islamophobia.”

Here John Veugelers and Gabriel Menard's chapter on “The Non-Party Sector of the Radical Right” (285–304) is particularly useful because it breaks with the dominant themes of the other chapters by pointing out issues that scholars have overlooked. These include such things as the role of intellectuals, think tanks, publishers, parallel party organizations, voluntary associations, small groups, political sects, and—perhaps most important of all— families (see also Poewe, Reference Strachen2006). The mention of these issues points to a weakness in many of the other chapters, which seem to rely predominantly on written and published sources. To research these issues, however, one must use more hands-on methods, such as participant observation and face-to-face interviews.

Overall, The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right is a helpful and stimulating book. Nevertheless, it leaves this reader with the feeling that there is a lot more work to be done if we really want to understand the radical right. But then this was probably the intent of the editor and many of the contributors.