THIS is a somewhat puzzling book, not helped by its title.

What fascism is, and how it develops, is never made clear and references to the work of Michel Foucault and Wilhelm Reich provide little assistance. By its conclusion, I was as unsure of what “living a non-fascist life” means as I was at the start.

[[{"fid":"16119","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]Natasha Lennard’s passionate concerns not only conflate the general nature of capitalism with the more specific horrors of fascism, their vague and somewhat meandering trajectory goes against the grain for those who like things a bit more spelled out.

That said, there’s plenty of value in this essay collection. Lennard is a lively, committed and thoughtful writer and much of her writing is best seen as exploratory journeys that raise insightful questions rather than give definitive answers.

Lennard is clear in her understanding that there is a systemic origin to societal ills and that nothing short of an anti-capitalist revolution is needed. Unafraid to go on the attack against people who  pose as friends to the revolutionary cause, she has little time for those who tell tall stories about everything being wonderful in the US before the arrival of that nasty Mr Trump.

Her essay on the liberal left’s patronising, knee-jerk and almost apologetic reaction to the nationwide riots that flared up in Britain in recent years might well not be the best way to build a broad-based mass movement but it’s a refreshingly understandable response.

Embryonic attempts at revolution they most certainly weren’t but neither were the riots the self-interested and nihilistic consumer-based orgies that some were quick to depict them as.

Lennard also turns her attention to the limits of bourgeois democracy, the North Dakota protests against attacks on indigenous peoples and environmental despoliation and the double standards in how the mass media portray death in the news.

A concluding heartrending piece about her  own mental health difficulties asserts the primacy of self-determination.

Yet it’s disappointing that so little space is given to communist politics and it’s certainly the first time that I’ve heard the great Bertholt Brecht described as a social democrat.

And if the essays had paid as much attention to the legacy, however contested, of political parties, trade unions and national liberation movements as they give to affinity groups and antifa organisations, a different way of grounding life in “non-fascist” practices might well have emerged.

Being Numerous is published by Verso, £12.99.