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Mussolini: A Biography

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Mussolini: A Biography

Paperback(1ST COOPER)

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Overview

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was the founder of Fascism and iron-fisted ruler of Italy for two decades. He was also an extremely able politician who won the esteem of many statesmen—including Winston Churchill and influential persons in the United States.

This biography describes Mussolini's childhood; his education (including his suspension from school for attacking other boys with knives); his World War I experiences and severe wounding; his involvement in, and eventual expulsion from the revolutionary Italian Socialist Party; his numerous love affairs, his early career as a journalist and his rise to power and brutal rule.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815410812
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/05/2000
Edition description:	1ST COOPER
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	1,158,973
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 9.02(h) x 1.01(d)

Chapter 1: The Red Romagna
Chapter 2: The Difficult Child
Chapter 3: Switzerland
Chapter 4: The Trentino
Chapter 5: The Libyan War
Chapter 6: Red Week
Chapter 7: The Break with Socialism
Chapter 8: The Interventionist
Chapter 9: Corporal Mussolini
Chapter 10: The Fascio di Combattimento
Chapter 11: The Bolshevik Menace
Chapter 12: Castor Oil and Arson
Chapter 13: The Treaty of Pacification
Chapter 14: The General Strike
Chapter 15: The March on Rome
Chapter 16: Prime Minister
Chapter 17: Corfu
Chapter 18: Matteotti
Chapter 19: Consolidating the Dictatorship
Chapter 20: The Terrorists
Chapter 21: The Mafia
Chapter 22: The Concordat
Chapter 23: The Fascist Regime
Chapter 24: The Duce at Work
Chapter 25: Depression and Disarmament
Chapter 26: Hitler
Chapter 27: Ethiopia
Chapter 28: Defying the World
Chapter 29: Victory
Chapter 30: The Spanish Civil War
Chapter 31: The Radical Laws
Chapter 32: Munich
Chapter 33: Non-Belligerency
Chapter 34: The War Between Blood and Gold
Chapter 35: Marching on Moscow
Chapter 36: The Twenty-Fifth of July
Chapter 37: The Italian Social Republic
Chapter 38: Mussolini at Bay
Chapter 39: Nemesis
Sources and References
Bibliography
Index

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Editorial Reviews

This is a competent study by an experienced biographer.

The Historian - Douglas J. Forsyth

Jasper Ridley has written a good biography of Mussolini.

The Weekly Standard - Algis Valiunas

Jasper Ridley has written a good biography of Mussolini.--Algis Valiunas "The Weekly Standard "

This is a competent study by an experienced biographer.--Douglas J. Forsyth "The Historian "

This new biography will refine our portrait of a 20th-century dictator....[A] valuable introduction to Mussolini.--Kirkus

From the Publisher

Jasper Ridley has written a good biography of Mussolini.
— Algis Valiunas

The Weekly Standard

This is a competent study by an experienced biographer.
— Douglas J. Forsyth

The Historian

Among 20th-century tyrants who relied upon "cults of personality" -- Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and Mussolini, among others -- Mussolini is perhaps the least understood. Jasper Ridley, in Mussolini, paints a picture of a man who was intelligent and dangerous, not the buffoon he is often portrayed to have been.

bn.com

Hitler once allegedly told Mussolini that he was "too kind to be any good as a dictator." The remark, suggests prolific biographer Ridley (Thomas Cranmer; Lord Palmerston; Garibaldi; Tito), was "banter between friends in which an apparent censure conceals a compliment." Yet the line also anticipates Ridley's own approach to the brazen, boastful demagogue who ruled Italy ruthlessly for 21 years with the help of thugs and thieves who did Il Duce's bidding. Although Mussolini's revived Roman empire is generally seen as a house of cards, the corrupt creation of a shrewd phrase-maker, Ridley is nonetheless cautiously admiring. His Duce is a good family man (despite his mistresses), a patriot (beneath the propaganda), an adroit politician (except in foreign affairs), even a humanitarian (who didn't deport arrested Jews to death camps). He portrays Mussolini as a pragmatist in peacetime, a bumbler in war. In his account of the years from 1923 to 1940, Ridley writes that Fascism "did not greatly interfere" with ordinary lives and "brought some real benefits to the people," but any such benefits were undermined by an opportunist choice of wartime allies. Perhaps losing interest, or failing in sympathy with the wartime Duce, Ridley passes over the embarrassing and disastrous Axis years in relatively few pages, closing with Mussolini's summary execution by partisans in the last days of the war. Somewhat casual with facts and lacking the sharp candor of Denis Mack Smith's still-standard life (1982), Ridley's Mussolini is not a page-turner. Sixteen-page photo insert. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Ridley has written numerous biographies (e.g., Maximilian and Juarez, LJ 11/1/92), with Mussolini inspiring his latest but probably not his best work. The well-known tale of the poor Italian with the impressive speaking style and boisterous swagger who rose above his station in life to govern Italy during the tempestuous 1920s and 1930s is told rather ploddingly. Although uninspired, Ridley is evenhanded in his portrayal of Il Duce as the Italian strongman who made the trains run on time and his enemies disappear in the middle of the night. Mussolini was a master politician who invented Italian fascism and sought equal stature with Hitler but ended up butchered upside down at the end of a rope. Though told from a limited perspective, this book has great detail and remains the most comprehensive biography to appear in over a decade. For larger collections.--Edward Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Library Journal

This new biography will refine our portrait of a 20th-century dictator. It has been Mussolini's great historical fortune that he shared the stage with Hitler and Stalin. Overshadowed by the barbarism of his two contemporaries, Mussolini has reaped the benefit of appearing benign while Hitler and Stalin continue to battle for supreme title of the 20th century's worst dictator. Another historical anomaly was that Mussolini was initially praised by many Western leaders, most warmly by Winston Churchill and influential persons in the US. Ridley, a lawyer and author of more than 15 historical biographies, shares these opinions. Ridley correctly admonishes an earlier historiographical and political tradition that saw Mussolini as a mere buffoon, gesturing wildly during his many balcony speeches. No buffoon remains in power for two decades. This is a more nuanced portrait, showing Mussolini hesitant and undecided at times, willing to cooperate with other governments when it suited his designs. Of particular value is Ridley's description of Mussolini's early life and career, usually given short- shrift in other biographies of the dictator. A full third of the book is devoted to these early years, including information on his family, education, war experience, and eventual expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party for advocating intervention in the Great War. Mussolini was a complex and often contradictory man, as exemplified by his early political career as a revolutionary socialist. But Ridley is sometimes overly sympathetic with his subject: fascist violence is not depicted in its full savagery, while antifascists who attempted to assassinate the dictator are called "terrorists" (withoutthe accompanying ironic quotes). Although the fascist Gabriel García Lorca regime cannot claim the number of victims destroyed by Stalin or Hitler, fascists were skilled in the political use of violence and terror, having the distinction of organizing the first death squads, the infamous Blackshirts or squadristi. The writing here is sometimes dry and particularly British. Still, though not without its flaws, this is a valuable introduction to Mussolini. .

Kirkus Reviews

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