Mussolini

Rating:
Summary: Mussolini, a fit leader for a nation of fascisti and mafiosi
Review: Bosworth does a good job showing how shallow Mussolini really was. He believed in nothing and in everything. He was a disgrace but curiously just what the people of that peninsula called Italy, a "geographic expression" in Metternich's view, deserved. Mussolini is Godfather Corleone and Tony Soprano!

More might have been done to show how Mussolini with all his faults and few virtues was not really a rejection of the Risorgimento but its fulfilment. The Risogrimento was a fraud and so was Mussolini. His career was an Italian Soap Opera -- fitting for this very unserious people.

Rating:
Summary: Mussolini, a fit leader for a nation of fascisti and mafiosi
Review: Bosworth does a good job showing how shallow Mussolini really was. He believed in nothing and in everything. He was a disgrace but curiously just what the people of that peninsula called Italy, a "geographic expression" in Metternich's view, deserved. Mussolini is Godfather Corleone and Tony Soprano!

More might have been done to show how Mussolini with all his faults and few virtues was not really a rejection of the Risorgimento but its fulfilment. The Risogrimento was a fraud and so was Mussolini. His career was an Italian Soap Opera -- fitting for this very unserious people.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious work on a pathetic villian called Mussolini
Review: This book should have been better edited (to 200 pages), with its numerous typographical errors, and it comes across as more an attempt by the author to show off his knowledge of "Liberal" (pre fascist) Italy (it boggles the novice's mind as to what political beliefs marked one as a Futurist, syndicalist, Giolottian etc) than his insights into Mussolini as a bombastic philanderer, gangster politician, habitual liar, hollow pedant, lifelong coward ( he was discharged from the Army, as a conscript, not war vlounteer, after being wounded in the arse by an accidental grenade explosion in the barracks) and depraved knave.

Packed full of petty details and tedious to the extreme, whilst blissfully ignorant of the wider picture, we are bombarded with rubbish that Mussolini is cultivated in arts, music, philosophy, well versed in journalism, pedagogy,self taught and fluent in English, French and German (instead of being the typical village fool that he is) and that he has been vastly under estimated by contemporaries and historians alike.

The last years of Mussolini are barely covered in the book, which then digresses to random, irrelevant rantings on post war Fascism, and De Felice's monumental rubbish that tries to restore and repair the bruised reputation of Mussolini, as if he ever had one that matteed.

I recommend Denis Mack Smith penetrating and coincise biography on this ass of a man instead.

Rating:
Summary: Still a swine after all these years
Review: Twenty years ago Denis Mack Smith published what was at the time the definitive biography of Mussolini. Concise and economical, it was also utterly devastating and mordantly hilarious. But between then and now the conservative Italian historian Renzo De Felice finished his mammoth biography that weighed in at perhaps twenty times the length of Mack Smith. At the same time De Felice's book was noticeably more sympathetic to the man (and to the Italian ruling class that let him get away with so much) and helped encourage what to outsiders appears the bizarre atmosphere of "anti-anti-Fascism" that typifies Berlusconi Italy. Partially as a response to this diplomatic historian R.J.B. Bosworth has produced a new biography, which seeks incorporate twenty new years of scholarship. It counters De Felice's lenient version and offers a more complex response to Mussolini than Mack Smith's olympian scorn.

Is it better than Mack Smith? Not necessarily. But it is a useful book worth reading. One should compare it to Paul Preston's book on Franco, Herbert Bix's work on Hirohito and Ian Kershaw's two volume biography on Hitler. Bosworth's book is shorter than all three (and the body is only a hundred pages longer than Mack Smith's). His portrait of Mussolini as a bullying demagogue, manipulative thug, shallow ideologue, brutal colonialist and incompetent general does not differ too much from Mack Smith's version. As a result it is not as revelatory as Bix's was on Hirohito's complicity or Preston's was on Franco's willingness to support the Axis. Bosworth is not as thorough as Kershaw. Whereas Kershaw's book is definitive on such matters as rumours about Hitler's "Jewishness" or his relationship with his niece, or about the Reichstag Fire or the attempt on Hitler's life, Bosworth's account of such matters at the murder of Mateleotti or the decision to enter the second world war seem comparatively cursory.

What Bosworth seeks to do in this account is to bring in many of the ideas that Kershaw and other historians of Nazism, most noticeably the late great Martin Broszat, have brought to their study of the Third Reich, and apply them to Italy. As such Bosworth emphasizes questions such as was Mussolini a "weak" dictator? how much influence did he personally have in relation to other segments of the regime? what degree of continuity was there with the pre-Mussolini "Liberal Italy"? how coherent was Mussolini's ideology and how determined was he on his objectives? The results are useful, and we get to learn more about relationships within the party and its regional bases. We learn, for instance, that other fascists came up with the distinctive anthem, uniform, slogan, name, and nasty habit of forcing castor oil down their enemies' throats. Bosworth points out that Mussolini's colonial atrocities in Ethiopia and Libya (where in Cyraneica he killed half the population) as well as his opportunistic entry into the second world war was all too much in keeping with "Liberal" traditions. In discussing ideology Mack Smith famously emphasized Mussolini's breathtaking cynicism, combined with a strong dose of culpable stupidity and shallowness. Bosworth, by contrast, tends to provide more nuance on the shallowness side of the ledger (he is particularly useful on the twists and turns of Mussolini's racialism). On the other hand in discussions on foreign policy Bosworth tends to forget the fact that in Italian politics just because something is very badly planned, that is NOT evidence of a lack of premeditation. MacGregor Knox's Hitler's Italian Allies should be read in contrast. More evidence could have been provided about public opinion on vital points in 1922, 1924, 1940, and 1943-45. In contrast to Kershaw, Bosworth's volume is not as definitive as a history of Italy.

Bosworth's eye for detail is not as consistently damning as Mack Smith, but we do learn some interesting new things. Bosworth provides more detail about Mussolini's ill health, his many affairs, as well as the oddly complicated fate of his corpse. We also learn more about Mussolini's children, who were a shallow and unappealing lot. We learn that Claretta Petacci, Mussolini's last mistress, had a tendency to whinge and to lie all day in bed eating chocolate. We learn that Mussolini's wife hated her son in law Count Ciano for, among other reasons, playing golf. We learn that Mussolini was by far the most prolific of leading fascists at producing children, the average being otherwise only 1.9 children. Fascism claimed to be a modernizing dictatorship, yet in 1931 a smaller proportion of university students were from the working class than in 1911, Mussolini did a poorer job in confronting illiteracy than, say, Stalin, while the growth rate was lower than that in Baldwin's England, and half that of Social Democratic Sweden. If Fascism is defined as the symbiosis of vicious cruelty and modernizing change, Franco was far more of a fascist than Mussolini. Like Mack Smith, Bosworth has no patience for those who try to argue that Mussolini after 1914 had any real radical principles, and he quotes an article Mussolini wrote in 1918 saying that the ideal dictator should be Woodrow Wilson. We learn about gullible pro-Fascist supporters, including the ordinarily very sensible Clementine Churchill, while we hear Pius XI speak approvingly in 1932 of a "Catholic totalitarianism" and babbling to Mussolini that same year that all of the Church's troubles were the fault of the Jews. In the end Bosworth concludes "His propagandists declared that he was always right. However, in the most profound matters which touch on the human condition, he was, with little exception, wrong."

Rating:
Summary: Still a swine after all these years
Review: Twenty years ago Denis Mack Smith published what was at the time the definitive biography of Mussolini. Concise and economical, it was also utterly devastating and mordantly hilarious. But between then and now the conservative Italian historian Renzo De Felice finished his mammoth biography that weighed in at perhaps twenty times the length of Mack Smith. At the same time De Felice's book was noticeably more sympathetic to the man (and to the Italian ruling class that let him get away with so much) and helped encourage what to outsiders appears the bizarre atmosphere of "anti-anti-Fascism" that typifies Berlusconi Italy. Partially as a response to this diplomatic historian R.J.B. Bosworth has produced a new biography, which seeks incorporate twenty new years of scholarship. It counters De Felice's lenient version and offers a more complex response to Mussolini than Mack Smith's olympian scorn.

Is it better than Mack Smith? Not necessarily. But it is a useful book worth reading. One should compare it to Paul Preston's book on Franco, Herbert Bix's work on Hirohito and Ian Kershaw's two volume biography on Hitler. Bosworth's book is shorter than all three (and the body is only a hundred pages longer than Mack Smith's). His portrait of Mussolini as a bullying demagogue, manipulative thug, shallow ideologue, brutal colonialist and incompetent general does not differ too much from Mack Smith's version. As a result it is not as revelatory as Bix's was on Hirohito's complicity or Preston's was on Franco's willingness to support the Axis. Bosworth is not as thorough as Kershaw. Whereas Kershaw's book is definitive on such matters as rumours about Hitler's "Jewishness" or his relationship with his niece, or about the Reichstag Fire or the attempt on Hitler's life, Bosworth's account of such matters at the murder of Mateleotti or the decision to enter the second world war seem comparatively cursory.

What Bosworth seeks to do in this account is to bring in many of the ideas that Kershaw and other historians of Nazism, most noticeably the late great Martin Broszat, have brought to their study of the Third Reich, and apply them to Italy. As such Bosworth emphasizes questions such as was Mussolini a "weak" dictator? how much influence did he personally have in relation to other segments of the regime? what degree of continuity was there with the pre-Mussolini "Liberal Italy"? how coherent was Mussolini's ideology and how determined was he on his objectives? The results are useful, and we get to learn more about relationships within the party and its regional bases. We learn, for instance, that other fascists came up with the distinctive anthem, uniform, slogan, name, and nasty habit of forcing castor oil down their enemies' throats. Bosworth points out that Mussolini's colonial atrocities in Ethiopia and Libya (where in Cyraneica he killed half the population) as well as his opportunistic entry into the second world war was all too much in keeping with "Liberal" traditions. In discussing ideology Mack Smith famously emphasized Mussolini's breathtaking cynicism, combined with a strong dose of culpable stupidity and shallowness. Bosworth, by contrast, tends to provide more nuance on the shallowness side of the ledger (he is particularly useful on the twists and turns of Mussolini's racialism). On the other hand in discussions on foreign policy Bosworth tends to forget the fact that in Italian politics just because something is very badly planned, that is NOT evidence of a lack of premeditation. MacGregor Knox's Hitler's Italian Allies should be read in contrast. More evidence could have been provided about public opinion on vital points in 1922, 1924, 1940, and 1943-45. In contrast to Kershaw, Bosworth's volume is not as definitive as a history of Italy.

Bosworth's eye for detail is not as consistently damning as Mack Smith, but we do learn some interesting new things. Bosworth provides more detail about Mussolini's ill health, his many affairs, as well as the oddly complicated fate of his corpse. We also learn more about Mussolini's children, who were a shallow and unappealing lot. We learn that Claretta Petacci, Mussolini's last mistress, had a tendency to whinge and to lie all day in bed eating chocolate. We learn that Mussolini's wife hated her son in law Count Ciano for, among other reasons, playing golf. We learn that Mussolini was by far the most prolific of leading fascists at producing children, the average being otherwise only 1.9 children. Fascism claimed to be a modernizing dictatorship, yet in 1931 a smaller proportion of university students were from the working class than in 1911, Mussolini did a poorer job in confronting illiteracy than, say, Stalin, while the growth rate was lower than that in Baldwin's England, and half that of Social Democratic Sweden. If Fascism is defined as the symbiosis of vicious cruelty and modernizing change, Franco was far more of a fascist than Mussolini. Like Mack Smith, Bosworth has no patience for those who try to argue that Mussolini after 1914 had any real radical principles, and he quotes an article Mussolini wrote in 1918 saying that the ideal dictator should be Woodrow Wilson. We learn about gullible pro-Fascist supporters, including the ordinarily very sensible Clementine Churchill, while we hear Pius XI speak approvingly in 1932 of a "Catholic totalitarianism" and babbling to Mussolini that same year that all of the Church's troubles were the fault of the Jews. In the end Bosworth concludes "His propagandists declared that he was always right. However, in the most profound matters which touch on the human condition, he was, with little exception, wrong."

Rating:
Summary: This book missed by a mile
Review: Yet another feeble attempt by a so called authority on the subject to undermine Il Duce.What most of the author misses when he researches this man is he relies heavily on the revisionist version of Italys role in World War 2.What most of these historians fail to realize the grave state of Italy before Fascism came and saved it! The author does the usual run of the mill,low brow,liberal,communist,socialist stabs at Mussolini's life and taking shots at the Italian people as a whole.This is a typical interpretation of a man who tried to stop the flow of the Red tide of the 1920's that was threatening to envelop most of Europe.If you want to really know about Mussolini and Fascist Italy read:Mussolini My Rise and Fall/ Frogmens first battles(about the 10th light Flottila) and Italian Aces of World War 2.I have bought all three of these books from Amazon and they are very accurate with no revisionist slant.These books show the bravery and heroism with which the Italian people fought and died . Too bad more people accept the words of weak willed intellectuals than what the facts really show. AVANTI!!!!! GIOVENZZA!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: This book missed by a mile
Review: Yet another feeble attempt by a so called authority on the subject to undermine Il Duce.What most of the author misses when he researches this man is he relies heavily on the revisionist version of Italys role in World War 2.What most of these historians fail to realize the grave state of Italy before Fascism came and saved it! The author does the usual run of the mill,low brow,liberal,communist,socialist stabs at Mussolini's life and taking shots at the Italian people as a whole.This is a typical interpretation of a man who tried to stop the flow of the Red tide of the 1920's that was threatening to envelop most of Europe.If you want to really know about Mussolini and Fascist Italy read:Mussolini My Rise and Fall/ Frogmens first battles(about the 10th light Flottila) and Italian Aces of World War 2.I have bought all three of these books from Amazon and they are very accurate with no revisionist slant.These books show the bravery and heroism with which the Italian people fought and died . Too bad more people accept the words of weak willed intellectuals than what the facts really show. AVANTI!!!!! GIOVENZZA!!!!!!