Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship, 1915-1945 (Allen Lane History S.) - Hardcover

Bosworth, R J B

3.54

328 ratings by Goodreads

9780713996975: Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship, 1915-1945 (Allen Lane History S.)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713996978 ISBN 13: 9780713996975

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2005

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For Hitler when he came to power Mussolini was the great inspiration and model - fascism, totalitarianism, the charismatic ruler, terror and intimidation were all worked out and perfected in Italy many years before they came to Germany. And yet, as Richard Bosworth shows in his brilliant new book, there were huge differences between the two regimes, even if ultimately they both went down in flames together.

Italy was in many other ways both the pioneer and goad for a European instability that fed ultimately into the Armageddon of 1939-45. Devastated and embittered by its experience of the First World War, Italy under Mussolini subverted, damaged and besmirched any possible democratic or peaceful future. And yet for many ordinary Italians (and this book, among other things, is wonderful on the lives and feelings of ordinary people all over the peninsula and islands) the dictatorship never had the stranglehold on their lives and minds that Mussolini and his associates dreamt that they had.

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Review:

'A powerful work of scholarship, beautifully written, which should be read by anyone interested in 20th-century Europe, or ... modern-day Italy.' -- The Economist, October 8, 2005

About the Author:

Richard Bosworth is one of the world's leading writers on Fascist Italy whose life of Mussolini is the definitive account in English. He is Professor of History at the University of Western Australia.

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