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Books : Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship, 1915-1945
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Rating: 
- Superb (though slightly tedious at times)
As a chronicle of Fascist Italy, this book is very good. An impressive blend of political, economic, and military history which displays Fascist Italy effectively and thoroughly. The only problem is that the author tends to go into great detail about countless different characters (many of whom had no direct involvement in the drive of the regime) and thus it sometimes feels like one is reading a dictionary of Fascist supporters rather than a cohesive history of the period. Nonetheless, the book has been very well researched and is a gem for all who have an interest in the Duce and his era.
Rating:
- A masterly insight into the dark side of Italy
The stark horrors on the Nazi regime in Germany ensure that it is this country that is most associated with the cold, cruel and calculated tyranny of fascism. In the popular imagination there seem to be two branches of European fascism. The black shirted, jack booted, goose stepping National Socialism of a militaristic, Prussian dominated German Reich, and the bungling buffoonery of a seemingly more benign Mediterranean fascism. Mussolini personifies the latter, Il Duce inspecting wooden planes that will never fly, strutting military posturing that ends in defeat and an ignominious end at the hands of partisans.
The passage of time has ensured that Italy has never been tainted with quite the same brush as Germany, and never had to undergo the thorough national re-examination that consumed west Germany. But Richard Bosworth's `Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship' is an essential and timely reminder that the Italian regime was every bit as capable of life shattering cruelty and that Italy was, in many ways, the role model and chief instigator for military imperialism. The horrors remain in a different scale to those of either Hitler or Stalin, but they still deserve a proper historical interpretation, and the victims deserve better than to see the regime that tortured them become a comical footnote.
Mussolini's Italy is written in a lucid and slightly highbrow manner. This is not by any means an impenetrable academic text, but neither is it a work of novelistic narrative fiction. Bosworth has a strong argument to make that Italy under Mussolini was a shockingly unpleasant place, and to do so requires an academic style that whilst being less immediately satisfying produces a work of lasting impact and meaning.
Bosworth has managed to fashion a narrative history that is both accessible to those interested in the period, the country or the person, and that is academically rigorous. Unlike many works of narrative history he doesn't betray his academic credentials to offer something that is an easy but historically superficial story. Instead he credits the reader with intelligence, and assumes a degree of understanding which perhaps makes it not the most suitable book as an introduction to the subject area. However if you come with a knowledge of Italian history, or of the Second World War, it will give you an illuminating and rewarding insight into what has become the somewhat forgotten third party of the Tripartite Pact.
Rating:
- Flawed Masterwork
This book contains a wealth of research and countless histories of figures in the Fascist movement from which the author invites us in his preface to 'draw a general picture from their impressionist detail'. This makes for a difficult and often boring task for the general reader as you wish the author had spent more time digesting the information to provide succinct analyses and conclusions of his own. The writing style is often idiosyncratic and in the context of pre-war Italy references to 'jihad' and 'Silvio Berlusconi' only serve to jar the reader. Words such as 'Fascistization', speechifying', 'camelized' and 'chuffed' do not lend an elegance to the construction. A verbose and detailed book in which the narrative drive is often lost.
- Superb (though slightly tedious at times)As a chronicle of Fascist Italy, this book is very good. An impressive blend of political, economic, and military history which displays Fascist Italy effectively and thoroughly. The only problem is that the author tends to go into great detail about countless different characters (many of whom had no direct involvement in the drive of the regime) and thus it sometimes feels like one is reading a dictionary of Fascist supporters rather than a cohesive history of the period. Nonetheless, the book has been very well researched and is a gem for all who have an interest in the Duce and his era.
Rating:
- A masterly insight into the dark side of ItalyThe stark horrors on the Nazi regime in Germany ensure that it is this country that is most associated with the cold, cruel and calculated tyranny of fascism. In the popular imagination there seem to be two branches of European fascism. The black shirted, jack booted, goose stepping National Socialism of a militaristic, Prussian dominated German Reich, and the bungling buffoonery of a seemingly more benign Mediterranean fascism. Mussolini personifies the latter, Il Duce inspecting wooden planes that will never fly, strutting military posturing that ends in defeat and an ignominious end at the hands of partisans.
The passage of time has ensured that Italy has never been tainted with quite the same brush as Germany, and never had to undergo the thorough national re-examination that consumed west Germany. But Richard Bosworth's `Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship' is an essential and timely reminder that the Italian regime was every bit as capable of life shattering cruelty and that Italy was, in many ways, the role model and chief instigator for military imperialism. The horrors remain in a different scale to those of either Hitler or Stalin, but they still deserve a proper historical interpretation, and the victims deserve better than to see the regime that tortured them become a comical footnote.
Mussolini's Italy is written in a lucid and slightly highbrow manner. This is not by any means an impenetrable academic text, but neither is it a work of novelistic narrative fiction. Bosworth has a strong argument to make that Italy under Mussolini was a shockingly unpleasant place, and to do so requires an academic style that whilst being less immediately satisfying produces a work of lasting impact and meaning.
Bosworth has managed to fashion a narrative history that is both accessible to those interested in the period, the country or the person, and that is academically rigorous. Unlike many works of narrative history he doesn't betray his academic credentials to offer something that is an easy but historically superficial story. Instead he credits the reader with intelligence, and assumes a degree of understanding which perhaps makes it not the most suitable book as an introduction to the subject area. However if you come with a knowledge of Italian history, or of the Second World War, it will give you an illuminating and rewarding insight into what has become the somewhat forgotten third party of the Tripartite Pact.
Rating:
- Flawed MasterworkThis book contains a wealth of research and countless histories of figures in the Fascist movement from which the author invites us in his preface to 'draw a general picture from their impressionist detail'. This makes for a difficult and often boring task for the general reader as you wish the author had spent more time digesting the information to provide succinct analyses and conclusions of his own. The writing style is often idiosyncratic and in the context of pre-war Italy references to 'jihad' and 'Silvio Berlusconi' only serve to jar the reader. Words such as 'Fascistization', speechifying', 'camelized' and 'chuffed' do not lend an elegance to the construction. A verbose and detailed book in which the narrative drive is often lost.