THE DYNAMICS OF WAR AND REVOLUTION

Stated 'Second Edition' but possibly the First. Judge for yourself in light of the dust jacket: 'The Dynamics of War and Revolution was printed, bound and ready the Middle of May for publication by one of the country's oldest and largest publishing houses. Then came the battle of France and the fifth column hysteria in the United States and the publishers made a last minute decition not to publish the book. Thereafter, for six weeks the author unsuccessfully sought a publisher. In the meantime, he bought from the publisher the plates and books already printed and bound under the imprint of the publisher. The author has had these books rebound and is now offering the public under the imprint of The Weekly Foreign Letter, a private publication he writes and mails weekly.' Whether this copy is from the orignal Harper's sheets or a second printing from the plates Dennis aquired is unclear. xxxi, 259pp. 8vo, burgundy cloth, gilt stamped spine lettering and tri-band blindstamped rules. Some offsetting to the endpapers, one creased page, surprisingly clean and sharp otherwise; DJ tips worn, price-clipped, spine toned, now wrapped in mylar. Scarce in trade. An anti-interventionist manifesto, laying the author's view of international war as the handmaiden of capitalistic imperialism. 'Lawrence Dennis accused the Roosevelt administration of expoloiting international crisis to relieve domestic ills in his Dynamics of War and Revolution, a charge first levied in his Coming American Fascism.' (Justus Doenecke, The Literature of Isolationism). Seeing Capitalism and Democracy as inextricably linked, Dennis advocates for a revolutionary turn to one-party Socialism. Believing the present European conflict to be as great a folly as the First World War, Dennis ironic favors 'giving the gullible American public what they want' as an accellerationist strategy for post-war transition to Fascist Socialism. Following *Is Capitalism Doomed?* (1932) and *The Coming American Fascism* (1936), this would have been his third book published with Harper & Brothers, one of the most prominent mainstream American publishing firms and hitherto publishers of numerous other anti-interventionist books. Born of an African American mother and married to a Jewish woman, Lawrence Dennis was a surprising leader of American Fascism. 'Dennis defined fascism as a mixture of nationalism and corporate rationalization, predicted that the United States was moving toward some form of the system, and claimed to favor a 'nice' version. A former Foreign Service officer, Dennis was more likely to be found debating social critic Alfred Bingham at the Harvard Club than to be seen with Pelley or Winrod on the Hustings. Fascinated by far right agitators, however, he acquired a reputation as the one man 'brain trust' of native fascism.' (Leo Rubuffo, The Old Christian Right). Dubbed 'The American Alfred Rosenberg', Dennis was one of the main defendants in the McWilliams sedition trial of 1944, in which he argued that American Fascism and Anti-Interventionism had no integral connection to a worldwide Nazi movement and was not necessarily anti-semitic or racist. Nevertheless, he came to repudiate his fascist views after the war, finding other grounds for his anti-war and anti-capitalism activism.…