Why England Slept US$40,000 in royalties for Kennedy. Those from the British sales were donated to Plymouth, England, recently bombed by the Luftwaffe, while Kennedy bought a Buick convertible with his income from the book's North-American sales. Joseph Kennedy had initially approached Harold Laski to write the book's foreword, but Laski declined, feeling that it was "the book of an immature mind; that if it hadn't been written by the son of a very rich man, he wouldn't have found a publisher." Why England Slept Why England Slept is the published version of a thesis written by John F. Kennedy while in his
The Doctrine of Fascism titled: "Dottrina Politica e sociale." The Mussolini entry starts on page 847 and ends on 851 with the credit line "Benito Mussolini." All subsequent translations of "The Doctrine of Fascism" are from this work. A key concept of the Mussolini essay was that fascism was a rejection of previous models: "Granted that the 19th century was the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of marxism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a Fascist century. If