• those aspects of post-Risorgimento Italy which provided the longterm context vital to an understanding of Fascism
• the social and political convulsions wrought by economic change after 1890 and by Italy’s intervention in the First World War
• the Fascist movement's rapid rise from obscurity to power and the subsequent establishment of Mussolini’s dictatorship
• the history of the Fascist regime until its demise during the Second World War
• the ways in which Italian Fascism has been understood by contemporary analysts and by historians.

The third edition of this best-selling Lancaster Pamphlet provides an expanded and fully updated analysis. New features include additional material on Fascist totalitarianism and a completely revised consideration of the ways in which Fascism has been interpreted.