Customer Reviews

Mussolini: A Biography

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you want to satisfy a transient curiosity about the life of Mussolini, this book may actually do that, however if you are serious about pursuing the fact and truth of the man and the period you will probably find this book a little disappointing.

It is sketchy in most of its parts, especially as it covers the bits and pieces of the early life of Mussolini as a journalist. It lacks the depth of insight into many of the incidents and characters encountered. At points the author seems to be reciting dates and events, rather than analyzing and researching them.

Many names and historical facts are mentioned briefly, without elaborating even a little to educate readers who are not particularly professional historians. Arguments are sometimes weak and lack a convincing evidence, judgments are sometimes very subjective.

Still the book is amusing and hard to leave once you started reading from it, it will be a good book to travel with, but may not be satisfactory for serious historians and biography fans.

Jasper Ridley offers the reader a facile biography of the Italian dictator. Though Benito Mussolini's youth and early adulthood as a radical intellectual are adequately explained, the analysis of Mussolini's rise is shallow. An internationalist socialist until just before World War One, he becomes an Italian nationalist with almost little explanation of why he changed other than his serving briefly as a draftee in the pre-1914 Italian Army. Surely, there is more to explain Mussolini's turnabout. The analysis of post-war Italy and it's ungovernability and social breakdown is weak. Was Italian democractic tradition inch-deep, ready to be exploited by an authoritarian? The Fascist economic system is barely mentioned. Mussolini's thoughts on Hitler's big gamble of sending troops to the demilitarized Rhineland in 1935 are not explained. How did Mussolini come to be the weaker of the two European right-wing authoritarians and did he acknowledge that Hitler dominated the political alliance between the two men? Why did the Italian army have problems defeating the primitive Ethiopian army in 1935-36? Or why did the small, woefully armed Greek army defeat the Italian army and chase it across the Albanian frontier? Why was Italy not ready for World War Two? This biography lacks analysis. More muscle is needed to fill out the man who was Benito Mussolini.

This biography of Mussolini sometimes seems like a high school report - it covers just the facts and events of Mussolini's life, with little analysis or depth. There's no insight into the man - for example, why he flip-flopped so dramatically from socialism to fascism. Also, I would have liked more depth and context on Italian politics, Ethiopia, etc. Not bad for somebody who wants a quick read, but there are better biographies out there.

This biography of Mussolini sometimes seems like a high school report - it covers just the facts and events of Mussolini's life, with little analysis or depth. There's no insight into the man - for example, why he flip-flopped so dramatically from socialism to fascism. Also, I would have liked more depth and context on Italian politics, Ethiopia, etc. Not bad for somebody who wants a quick read, but there are better biographies out there.

This is not a comprehensive biography of Mussolini the man and politician. More a fragmentary story of the life of M. The process of ascension to power, the conversion of the socialist into the fascist, and the politics of the first ten years of consolidation are not really explored in their depth, as is now expected from a Duce's biography.
Moreover there are considerable gaps in the treatment of the pre-war years and the foundation of the Empire. Also, there are many subjective statements and personal appraisals of the author that do not correspond with the objective view of the modern historians about Mussolini. For instance, his position regarding the jewish question and the racial laws, is not objectively assessed, in its historical context. Also, Salo's period and Mussolini's uncomfortable relationship with the germans are not satisfactorily analyzed. For a more balanced and comprehensive one volume approach I would recommend professor Richard Bosworth's Biography of Mussolini. For truly in depth study, Renzo De Felice's books remain unsurpassed.

It should not be surprising that how people think today is shaped largely by the media and influenced by a need to conform to the majority. Americans, in particular, get most of their information of their world from TV and do not read books or feel the need to examine issues of concern in depth. Americans, although characterized as individualists, have a strong need to be a part of the majority and not of the kooky far-out fringe. It is the popular media and the need to be within the mainstream that has shaped the American's perception of history. Have a typical American describe "Benito Mussolini" and the result is a caricature. Jasper Ridley's "Mussolini" describes an "Il Duce" who is definitely more than a cartoon. Ridley describes Mussolini's path from committed socialist revolutionary to leader of Fascist Italy. Mussolini's work ethic and firm sense of nationalism is detailed. One interesting fact is that Mussolini never really admired the Germans or National Socialism and Hitler in particular. However, he eventually co-operates with Hitler to further Italy's security. After reading this book, one gets the impression that the oft parroted Allied fantasy that the Axis powers were committed in taking over the entire world is exactly that. Rather than a unanimous vanguard, the Tripartate Alliance was merely a marriage of convenience. Indeed, one can see the same kind of propaganda being generated by American neo-cons, with such nonsense as the "axis of evil."

The book also details events throughout the world during Mussolini's time which impacted his decisions relating to the state. In particular, the entire world was not interested in another European war. Rather than follow obey the will of the people, the governments then, and now, followed the agenda of the elites and plunged the world into senseless slaughter. As with Italy of the past, true American patriots are those that place the interests of America, and not those of other tribes, first.

Jasper Ridley's biography of Mussolini does a good job of retelling the life of this ambitious but fatally flawed leader. Mussolini was no Hitler. Even had he desired it, he could never have established totalitarianism in Italy as the temperment of the Italian people simply would not have allowed it. Instead he was sort of like the neighborhood bully elevated to power. Threatening yes, but not truly evil. Had World War Two not happened, his fate probably would have been more similar to Spain's Franco, whose regime died of natural causes with him. The most interesting aspect of Mussolini's life was his transistion from socialism to fascism, but even this can be viewed as opportunism from a man with no real political convictions other than obtaining and maintaining power. Overall, this is a good introdution to the man who in the end got what he deserved from his own people.