To Have Done with the Philosophical Cold War A Review of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea

How to uphold a politics of universalism, egalitarianism and abstraction without being tarnished by the accusation of fanaticism? In order to open the space in which the question can be asked, Alberto Toscano's Fanaticism explores various instantiations of the trope of 'fanaticism' and other associated concepts (totalitarianism, enthusiasm). Challenging the reliance on simplification, decontextualisation and analogical thinking behind uses of those terms, the book shows how fanaticism as Other conversely engenders a mystified idea of the modem West as the negative of the political and theoretical interdictions associated with them.