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Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945

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This is an ambitious and successful attempt to write the social history of Fascism. Italian Fascism, Bosworth reminds us, controlled Italy for almost a generation, a considerably longer period than the disastrous experiment of Nazi rule of Germany. How was Fascism experienced by Italians? To what extent did Fascism change Italy? What were the essential features of Fascist rule? What were the well springs of Fascism? Bosworth treats all these issues and more in this carefully documented and well written volume. Rather than pursuing these issues topically, Bosworth has organized this book chronologically. He begins with the nature of Liberal Italy and the experience of WWI, moves through the interwar period and the grim events of WWII, concluding with a concise but revealing chapter on postwar fascist movements. He weaves his topical themes into the narrative very well, providing considerable analysis and showing the historically dynamic nature of the Fascist experience. This combination of narrative and analysis is excellent.
Bosworth is particularly concerned with providing a balanced view of Fascist Italy. The Fascist state is often viewed popularly as a comic opera dicatorship. Bosworth shows well that Fascist Italy appears to be relatively benign only by comparison with Nazi Germany or the Stalinist Soviet Union. This oppressive dictatorship destroyed democracy and human rights in Italy, and by Bosworth's reckoning, was ultimately responsible for about 1 million deaths in Italy, the Balkans, and Africa. It was a police state in which millions of Italians were informing on each other, corrupting the quality of public life. At the same time, Bosworth addresses the "totalitarian" nature of the regime, a claim made by the Fascists themselves that they were remaking the Italian people. Due in large part to the actions of Fascist leaders themselves, this claim is shown to be a fraud. Fascist government itself exemplified the reliance on chains of patronage and clientage with its associated corruption typical of Italian society. Mussolini was quite content to compromise with powerful existing institutions like the Monarchy, the Papacy, and the Army. Bosworth shows very well the continuity the Fascist state had with the Liberal state it replaced and indeed, many of the crucial features of Italian Fascism appear to be extensions of some of the worst features of pre-WWI Italy.
Bosworth's work is careful, thoughtful, and presented extremely well.

This is a book that reflects R.J.B. Bosworth's remarkable skills as a researcher and his equally remarkable knowledge of Italy. It is a detailed and meticulous account of the rise and reign of the Fascist Party in Italy and its most internationally recognized figure, Benito Mussolini. The reader quickly learns that a number of figures, some admirable, some not, contributed a good deal to shape the course of Fascism both prior to and during Mussolini's dictatorship. Bosworth leaves no doubt about how corrupt and malevolent the Fascists were, but somehow he also leaves at least this reviewer with the impression that Fascist Italy was a cut the other major European totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia.

So is this a great book? Many informed people clearly think so, yet this reviewer has doubts. It is perhaps too concerned with the rise and contributions of individuals in the Italian Fascist movement and rather not concerned enough with the broader trends and currents that shaped or were shaped by that movement. Still it is worth anyone's time to read this book which is unflinching in its depiction of the Fascist Italy.

Professor Bosworth puts together a well-balanced look at the development of Italy's Fascist Party and its subsequent takeover of Italy. While arguing that Mussolini was far from innocent, Bosworth does show that he was considerably less malignant than either Hitler or Stalin. For instance, Mussolini did not create anything approaching the horrors of Auschwitz. Moreover, he shows how, unlike those other 2 dictators, Mussolini never established a truly totalitarian state (despite his boasting to the contrary). For instance, the Catholic Church remained as a leading institution within Italian society, and did not always toe the Fascist line. The same thing applies to the Italian monarchy (although Bosworth does not present King Victor Emmanuel III in a positive light). Moreover, he makes a convincing case that the Rome-Berlin Axis was clearly a marriage of unequals, with Italy playing the role of a very junior partner (apparently, Italians did not figure highly in the Nazi racial hierarchy). Even though "national characteristics" are no longer en vogue among historians, I got the impression from this book that Italians were somehow culturally incapable of establishing a genuinely totalitarian state, not to mention one that would seek to create any sort of "new world order." Bosworth also peppers the book with references to Italian Jews who were active in the Fascist Party. This is obviously a striking contrast to the situation in Nazi Germany. On a more critical note, I wish that Bosworth would have given more attention to the issue of "Italia Irredentia" as a function of Mussolini's foreign policy. After all, the Paris Peace Conference did not resolve this issue in Italy's favor (as it had created Yugoslavia out of much of that territory). Why didn't Mussolini attempt to grab this territory before undertaking a far more costly invasion of Ethiopia? After all, Yugoslavia during this period was a rather unstable nation, in jeopardy of coming apart due to increased ethnic tensions. This would have been interesting to read about. In addition, I found Bosworth's random references to contemporary politics unnecessary. He should have focused all of his energy on his title subject.

I'll first start with the good side of this book and that is the research that was done. He does a great job of giving many viewpoints and stories of different people and class throughout the book. As someone already said in a review, "I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody". It is a very long and detailed book, which I had found myself losing interest a few times because of the ton of names he throws out to the reader. This isn't a book on Mussolini, rather on Italy itself under his dictatorship. I believe he gives a poor account of the feelings and views of peasants/middle-class under Mussolini. I have asked many older generation Italians about Mussolini who were born during his time or after his death and the majority of the responses were about good deeds he had done. I was told he had built many roads, built public housing in many areas, and have found many older Italians still quoting Mussolini. Before reading this book I had heard many good accounts of this dictator, but right from the beginning of this book you can sense a total different viewpoint. Clearly to me this book seems one-sided. On a good note it is very detailed and does explain Fascism thoroughly but one-sided.

This book was purchased as a means to gain insight into life under Mussolini's regime. I read the book before interviewing an Italian immigrant who had spent her first 21 years in Fascist Italy. The book is quite informative.

I have had considerable interest in fascist Italy for about six years now, so finding this book was absolutely thrilling to me. I thought it would provide a balanced and unflinching look at fascist Italy, relying on factual reporting that was not influenced by opinions. In fact, there is some extent to which this is the case; massive amounts of fantastic research that demonstrates tremendous experience and knowledge, and the number of personal stories is simply staggering. Great gaps remain, however. In reading other books and sources, one comes across many of the same things Bosworth discusses, such as shoddy economic planning, meaningless projects, corruption, and shallow propaganda. On the other hand, one also encounters the fourth largest navy in the world, recreational camps that considerably bolstered national fitness and inspired Hitlers phenomenal Strength Through Joy program, armored corps that were innovative and, in fact, quite effective, and an air force that made unrecognized but significant contributions to the axis war effort. Other elements of Bosworth's book seem under emphasized. Progress against malaria, economic expansion into Libya and Ethiopia, and the extent to which Fascist Italy exhausted itself fighting in Spain are all mentioned, but, despite comprising a huge amount of attention for the regime, are not given more than a bit of documentation. Instead, we are treated to a book full of proofs that fascism was only skin deep, a fact that becomes evident in any ideology or government once the odds are clearly against it. That the odds would be against Italy is, of course, a foregone conclusion. Italy was a country that was, by comparison, little effected by the great depression , yet still had an eighth the radios and cars of great Britain, and no radar and other crucial technologies. Of course, Bosworth's comparisons to Liberal Italy are appreciated, but he still discusses Italy's inherent weaknesses far too little. Of course, Bosworth was not attempting to explain why Italy lost the Second World War so badly, but many of Fascist Italy's weaknesses were made manifest in those years, and simply would not have been had, for example, Italy's investment in Franco paid off with a Spanish ally, cutting off Egypt, Greece, and Yugoslavia thanks to Gibraltar and probably winning the Axis the war.

It is Bosworth's ignorance of and lack of attention to warfare that is the most serious flaw in my mind, especially given that this was by far the most emphasized point of the state that Bosworth studies. Bosworth simply briefly mentions that the Italian navy (which constituted a huge emphasis in fascist Italy) was shamefully defeated in several battles, his only comments about the Italian navy in the book, which of course go to suggest that Italy was outdated and a paper thin state. Perhaps Bosworth, the faithful student of Italian history, has not heard of the battles of First and Second Sirte, in which Italian naval forces and mine fields savaged their British opposition? Perhaps Bosworth has not heard of British operations Harpoon, Vigorous, Pedestal, and Agreement, all of which were allied supply or offensive attempts thwarted by either Italian or a combination of Italian and German forces, with Italians composing the entire fight at sea (with a handful of U-Boat exceptions) and a significant part of the aerial forces involved? It seems more likely that Bosworth has heard of them, and chose to omit them because they did not support his point. Considering the nature of the book as overwhelmingly disposed to personal stories, and the overwhelming majority of those being anti-fascist in nature, as well as other examples of pick-and-choose reporting (the Italian air force, Italian commercial interests, Italian international relations, Italy's economy) it is difficult for me to accept that Bosworth is in fact providing solid evidence for any solid argument at all. Of course, I would not question the accuracy of his reporting, simply it's bias and probable selectivity. I enjoyed the read, and am glad that it is being written on and remembered, because we should never forget the crimes of Mussolini and the horrors and lies of authoritarianism, but what I already know of Mussolini's Italy leads me to bring serious doubts to any analysis of this book. I would, nevertheless, encourage any interested reader to purchase this; it is enlightening on a number of things, and is a meaty tome, but I find it sad that in refuting the fascist state, an author feels compelled to skew the facts against it, when they should do it themselves.

R.J.B. Bosworth, an Australian professor of Italian history, wrote a very well-received biography of Mussolini, and then agreed with a reviewer who suggested that Mussolini's era cannot be reduced to one man. This book is his answer to the void.

It's meticulously researched, extremely well-written, pulls no punches in describing the evil of Mussolini's regime but yet puts it into perspective by comparing it to the German and Russian strains of totalitarianism. He captures the opera buffa aspects of fascism quite well, the futility of much of the rhetoric and plans, the less than unanimous enthusiasm for fascism. He describes, for example, the career of an assiduous sycophant who wrote "The Imitation of Mussolini," an almost sacrilegious spin-off of a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ."

This is not a political screed in the guise of a history; it's refreshing to see him call John Cornwell's book "absurd." Nevertheless every so often one does glimpse that his critique of fascism is colored by his devotion to Anglo-Saxon political correctionism, as when he quotes a lieutenant in the Italian army noting that "Out of the sea, salt. Out of women, trouble," and deems this blatant misogyny. My time spent with peoples of the Mediterranean littoral lead to me suspect that this was less the fruit of misogyny than simply the flowery language used by both men and women in those cultures. Most tantalizing is his implicit and explicit description of how the administration of G.W. Bush is unabashed in associating with the spiritual and political heirs of Mussolini.

As he confesses himself, Bosworth has set a near-impossible goal for himself in the writing of this book, but has nonetheless done a fantastic job of delving into the depths of fascist Italy. Written by a leading expert on the subject, "Mussolini's Italy" is a unique read that shows the effects of fascism in Italy at nearly all social levels and how it affected the people of Italy. Another related title to consider, if you find this book to be worth your time (which I would venture to say it would be), is "On the Fiery March," which gives a more in-depth look into Mussolini's reasoning and empire-building attempts. "On the Fiery March" is a great complementary work for "Mussolini's Italy," as having both titles can give the reader a comprehensive overview of fascist Italy under Mussolini's control.

What is Fascism? many have asked this question over many decades and there has yet been delivered a definitive answer. However "Mussolini's Italy" does give an well researched account of life in Italy during Mussolini. Bosworth's analysis is by far one of the best in regards to life under fascism in Europe.

Although the analysis is very long and can be boring at times, the research is credible and you the reader will walk away with a treasure of knowledge regarding this dark and mysterious "ideology."

The book is interesting, but the author writes with the aggravating habit of academics to state and restate the exact same thing five different ways without adding any additional insight or value. I kept thinking this book must have begun life as a PhD dissertation, the author searching for ways to pad the text. I read it two years ago, so I'm afraid I can't give specifics. But that was my feeling as I read the book, and which has remained with me.

Not a bad book if you enjoy reading for the sake of looking at words. It definitely has lots of those.