However, Bannon has urged Dugin to abandon his anti-American and Sinophile views. Bannon has also described Brazilian Traditionalist thinker Olavo de Carvalho as "one of the great conservative intellectuals in the world". Lebanese-American author Nassim Nicholas Taleb, neoreactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin and conservative intellectual Michael Anton have been pointed out as three of the main influences in Steve Bannon's political thinking. Bannon is an admirer of paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan. Bannon's favorite columnist is academic Walter Russell Mead. Political theorist and philosopher Edmund Burke has also been described as a major influence on Bannon's ideological outlook. In a 2014 speech to a Vatican conference, Bannon made a passing reference to Julius Evola, a twentieth-century, Nazi-linked Italian writer who influenced Benito Mussolini's Italian Fascism and promoted the Traditionalist School, described by a "New York Times" writer as "a worldview popular in far-right and alternative religious circles that believes progress and equality are poisonous illusions." Bannon's interest in the ideas of the Traditionalist School was driven by Evola's book "Revolt Against the Modern World", and Guénon's books "Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta" and "The Crisis of the Modern World". In March 2016, Bannon stated he appreciates "any piece that mentions Evola." In referring to the associated views of Vladimir Putin, who is influenced by Evola follower Dugin, Bannon stated "We, the Judeo-Christian West, really have to look at what he's talking about as far as Traditionalism goes — particularly the sense of where it supports the underpinnings of nationalism." He has likewise quoted French anti-Enlightenment writer Charles Maurras approvingly to a French diplomat. Bannon has also repeatedly referenced the controversial French novel "The Camp of the Saints" (1973) by Jean Raspail, which depicts Third World immigration destroying Western civilization. He has embraced what BBC News describes as Savitri Devi's "account of history as a cyclical battle between good and evil". Bannon told an interviewer in 2018 that he is "fascinated by Mussolini", noting: "He was clearly loved by women. He was a guy's guy. He has all that virility. He also had amazing fashion sense, right, that whole thing with the uniforms." A former "Breitbart" writer has claimed Bannon stated in 2015 that alt-right publication "American Renaissance" was "fighting the same fight" as him.