Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Dictatorship, 1915-1945For almost all nations the First World War was an unparalleled disaster, but the Italian experience especially was to have catastrophic consequences. Weakened and embittered, trying and failing to come to terms with 600,000 dead and with an entire generation of men militarized by fighting, Italy gave birth to a new form of political life: Fascism ... brings to life the period when Italians participated in a vast and ultimately ruinous political experiment under their dictator, Benito Mussolini, and his Fascist henchmen. With none of the democratic interlude experienced by Germany, the country plunged almost directly from world war to dictatorship. The Fascists were the first totalitarians, aiming to reshape Italy and its people utterly. In so doing they provided a model for many other twentieth-century dictatorships, with Hitler always acknowledging the guidance he had received from Mussolini's march on Rome. A regime based on a cult of violence and obedience, Fascism made immense demands on its subjects, killing many within Italy and in its empire, and ruining the lives of more. Yet, despite this, Italians found ingenious ways of adapting, limiting, undermining and ridiculing Mussolini's ambitions for them. The heart of this book is its engagement with the life of these ordinary Italians and their families, struggling through terrible times. Drawing heavily on letters, diaries and police reports, Bosworth creates a picture of Italian life and a regime which - as the world hurtled towards the cataclysm of the Second World War - was to face humiliation, defeat, invasion and the utter collapse of the nation state. |
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Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945 R. J. B. Bosworth Limited preview - 2007 |
Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945 R. J. B. Bosworth Limited preview - 2007 |