Explaining the nature and origins of fascism isn’t an easy task, as Jonah Goldberg demonstrated in the fairly definitive book, Liberal Fascism. For starters, as Goldberg has noted, it is difficult to get people to agree on even a definition of the ideology.
Dinesh D’Souza, author of The Big Lie, is correct when he identifies fascism as a species of socialism. That is exactly what fascism is — and, as he argues, Giovanni Gentile got the fascist (wrecking) ball rolling.
But D’Souza appears to be guilty of a little bit of oversimplification.