The American Review was founded by the fascist publisher Seward Collins in 1933 as the successor to his periodical The Bookman. Collins intended it to serve as a vehicle for exploring radical conservative ideas in order to promote an American version of fascism. Before it ceased publication in 1937, Collins published many notable literary and social critics, including T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and many of the Southern Agrarians. Among the latter, Allen Tate made many appearances in the pages of The American Review.
The periodical also served as a platform for English Distributism, which advocated broad property ownership, local means of production, and subsistence farming. Many supporters of distributism were monarchists who favored a strong role for the church -- usually Anglo-Catholic or Roman Catholic -- and a return to a hierarchical society modeled on that of the Middle Ages. These beliefs were sometimes of a reactionary nature, as the growing industrialization of the West was seen as a grave threat to the creation of an ethical state.
In the inaugural issue of The American Review, Collins praised Benito Mussolini for creating an ethical state and championed the rise to power of Adolf Hitler, whose revolution, Collins believed, heralded the end of the Communist threat. Collins's pro-fascist statements were a constant feature of The American Review throughout its literary lifespan.
