This broke with previous analyses which had argued that such thinking had been restricted to the far-right and only of marginal importance before World War II and the emergence of the Vichy regime in June 1940.

According to Robert Wohl, in Neither Right nor Left: Sternhell recapitulated the central arguments of La Droite révolutionnaire, stated them with even greater force, escalating them audaciously, and extended them into the interwar period, claiming (in implicit contrast to earlier books) that by 1940 French political culture was thoroughly saturated (imprégnée) by fascist ideology.

This mentality took the form of a general rejection of liberal values and institutions as they existed under the Third Republic combined with an acute anxiety about the future of France.

[6] Wohl argues that the book's radicalism lay in the contrast with the previous tendency to think of fascism as a marginal or weak force in French politics.

[2] It also broke with the existing consensus that French fascism originated in the experience of World War I and was imported from Italy and Germany rather than emerging from France's indigenous political traditions.

In contrast to earlier studies which were like "earnest documentaries", Roger Griffin stated the work "can be likened to a major series originally made from prime-time TV abroad where it caused so much controversy that it was soon dubbed into English and has now been released on video".