Introduction: Fascism and other '-isms' / Antońio Costa Pinto. - Decomposition and recomposition of theories: how to arrive at useful ideas explaining Fascism / Stein U. Larsen. - Desperately seeking 'generic Fascism': some discordant thoughts on the academic recycling of indigenous categories / Michel Dobry. - Fascism and culture: a mosse-centric and meta-narrative (or how Fascist studies reinvented the wheel) / Roger Griffin. - Theories of Fascism: a critique from the perspective of women's and gender history / Kevin Passmore. - Fascism and religion / John Pollard. - Ideology, propaganda, violence and the rise of Fascism / Roger Eatwell. - Political violence and institutional crisis in interwar southern Europe / Giulia Albanese. - Ruling elites, political institutions and decision-making in Fascist-era dictatorships: comparative perspectives / Antońio Costa Pinto. - Fascism, 'licence' and genocide: from the chimera of rebirth to the authorization of mass murder / Aristotle Kallis. - Concluding remarks / Adrian Lyttelton.