American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America

Book Description

Twenty-five years ago, when Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists first spoke of the United States becoming a Christian nation that would build a global Christian empire, it was hard to take such hyperbolic rhetoric seriously. Today, such language no longer sounds like hyperbole but poses, instead, a very real threat to our freedom and our way of life. In American Fascists, Chris Hedges, veteran journalist and author of the National Book Award finalist War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.

Hedges, who grew up in rural parishes in upstate New York where his father was a Presbyterian pastor, attacks the movement as someone steeped in the Bible and Christian tradition. He points to the hundreds of senators and members of Congress who have earned between 80 and 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups as one of many signs that the movement is burrowing deep inside the American government to subvert it. The movement's call to dismantle the wall between church and state and the intolerance it preaches against all who do not conform to its warped vision of a Christian America are pumped into tens of millions of American homes through Christian television and radio stations, as well as reinforced through the curriculum in Christian schools. The movement's yearning for apocalyptic violence and its assault on dispassionate, intellectual inquiry are laying the foundation for a new, frightening America.

American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use

physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.

Customer Reviews:

Read this Book - Watch this Documentary - Then weep.......2007-10-07

I knew nothing about this, but now that I do it helps.

"Our cup runneth over with Enron arrogance and integrity. To fully understand what has gone so very wrong in this country you have only to watch the documentary, 'The Smartest Guys in the Room.' You will come face to face with incomprehensible evil, and naturally, George H.W. Bush and family are right in the middle of it.

"'I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations,' the president said in his campaign for reelection in September 2004. 'It's working. It's making a difference.' It is one of those deadly lies, which, by sheer repetition, is at length accepted by large numbers of Americans as, perhaps, a rough approximation of the truth. But it is not the truth, and it is not an innocent misstatement of the facts. It is a devious appeasement of the heartache of the parents of the poor and, if it is not forcefully resisted and denounced, it is going to lead our nation even further in a perilous direction."

I had never heard of this book or documentary, and now I know why. Most Americans do not want to deal with facts like these. They want to stay in Camelot, but all that, like Enron is going to end. And this time, it'll not be someone else's life savings, it will be their's, and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth all across this once great nation.

RAISES QUESTIONS AND SHEDS LIGHT.......2007-10-03

This rather incredible piece of scholarship raised some interesting questions:

What created the Fundamentalist Movement, and from where did it derive it followers?
What created the NRA, and to what Christian sects do its members belong?
Why did a government "by the people and for the people" give itself a Constitutional Right to Bear Arms"? And who will decide when and where those arms will be used?
Can now extinct religious strife be incited among the American Christian sects, or will they turn on those who are inciting them to religious strife?
To what ideological categories do those who have progressively secularlized the laws and schools belong?
Did the Christian God ever give His followers the right to practice Human sacrifice?
Did this author deliberately confuse his fantasies with reality?
Why is an excellent education so often not a cure for ingraind ideological prejudices?
Why is the Human the only species that is religious?
Who is afraid of Christian cultures?
Why do scare mongering books sell more copies?
What finally turns cultural wars into civil wars?

For thoughtful Americans who are unfamiliarity with this kind of fascist-baiting by elements in some of the popular press and schools, that has been going for at least 40 years, it sheds light on the fascist-baiting mentality. Historically, fascist-baiting is much older than this: it goes on everytime there is a new Christian revivalist movement.

Corporate Christo-Fascism's minds (and able-bodies) snatching.......2007-10-02

Upon finishing authoritative Chris Hedges's book (it's true: his credentials are impeccable), I think of a vision: arson fire set to a huge cinema theatre crowded with people distraught with sitcoms and "American Idol" and the like. Someone cries "Fire! Get out of here! but nobody seem to move, or grasp the full significance of the words, or the menace that now is full real. I sincerely hope the audience wakes up in time, that they render this a mere fantasy of the WASP Fundamentalists, and the American Christian right is not snatching minds and wills to such an alarming extent through false prophets and a false warrior Christ.
I knew W. Bush was their born-again Christian. I didn't know he had created by decree... (well, you'll see in the notes). From the innards Hedges exposes the connivance between corporate America and the powerful Dominionist leaders who in turn have their people's hands into the US Constitution to accommodate it to their own ends. For decades they've had the Economic and Political means. Now they're bent on really winning the hearts and minds of an intellectually challenged population so they'll be useful in the war against nonbelievers, who are us all who do not, and will not, share their distorted views or approve their robbing reality from under the feet of so many unwitting people.
Among the impressive images there is the gathering in a desert resort of the New Class, the rich who will be raptured into Heaven (the poor are condemned, they're nonbelievers), and how they consort with the Catholic right and especially with Israeli representatives. Of course they have a racist hatred of Arabs, who they count as the main nonbelievers to righteously destroy. Really, if they read their Bibles literally, they would see that Arabs are descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar, both of them thrown into the desert by Sarah's hurt pride so Isaac will be the heir. They will read also that God talks to Hagar, pledges protection for them and Ishmael's descendants. Therefore per the Bible and other sources, both peoples -Jews and Arabs- are semitic, having Abraham as their ultimate father, and anyone hating Arabs is also being anti-semitic. It woudl seem that Jews -who've had their huge portion of suffering themselves, especially poor Jews- have appropriated the name "semite" for themselves. Especially in "The New Class" is evident the upside down reality the American Fascists have created for their followers to live in, as compared to what the authentic Jesus Christ really taught as His doctrine. Never mind that the true Jesus, though a rabbi by right, made Himself one of the poorest in his homeland, and never had the refinement to pronounce "thou" or "thine", surely speaking in Aramaic as the language of the fishermen and peasants in Judea. Never mind that what Jesus taught in Judea was "A new commandment I give unto thee, that thou lovest..." (aw shucks). Again: "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love your neighbor just as you love yourselves." Christ never qualified what kind of neighbor, whether they should be white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Black, yellow, brown, whatever. He just said the word translated into Latin and Spanish as "the one right next to you", i.e., "próximo" or "prójimo".
Using the tactics of a refined Scientology (I know, I lost a friend to that greedy "church" here in Mexico), only now taking advantage of deeper religious roots, the American Christian Right aspire to resurrect Lord God of Hosts in the mind of anyone having the disgrace to be approached in a moment of despair, and aspire to prepare them to aide in the ultimate Apocalypse, which they will have one way or the other. Unlike Scientology, darker and more evil goals are at play. They masterly bide their time in accordance to US's rulers' bellicous schemes, say an attack on the Middle East, and uncannily coordinate it with the race toward nuclear war. For this purpose they use every resource, even "museums" that, lacking sound scientific bases, are more like childish theme parks so that followers can feel they've had a spiritual "coming-of-age".
As for Mr. D. James Kenndy totally false notion (which I doubt even he believes) that Catholicism is no more than a "cult", please note that the true Christ taught first to the Jews to fulfill the prophecies, then to the Gentiles so that salvation could reach the most hidden corners of the Earth. Upon the creation of Christianity the Catholic church became its visible representative, it is from Catholicism's mother lode that Protestantism was born, and it is both faiths' teachings that now Messrs. Kennedy, Dobson, Robertson and the like take unashamed advantage of to create their lying, lucrative dogmas. Then they seek total war on unbelievers to boot. Having never witnessed war, I think how stupidly glib must be comments on war from people who've never been in a battlefield or a massacre, never have seen or touched dead bodies, felt or smelled fresh blood, or witnessed the authentic despair of the survivors, who for the rest of their lives will be encroached by the most extreme post-traumatic stress which will go untreated for as long as Empire-minded Christian right persists in their dreams of Rapture and Political and Religious supremacy. Has anyone reader even have a war nightmare? Being under sniper fire in Oaxaca? Being in the middle of the nastiest massacre in a hospital-school in a field in a Central-American impoverished country? May God wake up decent Americans that they may join forces of reason to revive the true prestige of the United States of America, that is, not being the Ultimate Imperialist Force, but the Philosophical and Ethical Beacon the US was once considered to be. Keep in mind that the authentic Christ came as a watershed separating Israeli primitive tribes' Lord God of Hosts from the Authentic Superior God of Love; love to your neighbor: the one right next to you, anyplace, anytime.
What's my vested interest in this as a Mexican and an American (as I live in the American continent)? With Benedict XVI as Pope, Catholicism is grossly regressing into the right with all the resulting injustice. The American Christian Right use Catholics as allies and despise them. As a semi-preserved Catholic who read her Bible since she was ten, I knew of the massacres that the people of Israel justified as mandated by the God Lord of Hosts, I witnessed how Christ sent His Apostles to go and teach; he didn't specify who to teach or not. He just said Go and Teach. Poor (nonbelievers) in my country are poorer than ever in large part due to US-advocated policies; foreign priests are sent our way to urge the poor to accept their plight and wait for Heaven. I'm sure they'll go right into Heaven as they have lived for so long in Hell. Even the richer classes should see the convenience of not letting the lower classes (in their own country or otherwise) fall lower. The former slave Frederick Douglass once said, " Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe." I doubt Bush know who Douglass was, but any USAmerican who dares go out of his/her bubble will see this is a reality wherever the American supremacists have trodden on justice on this Earth.
I for one would argue that religions divide; if the true Christ is one with God, then only the authentic God unites. And that is precisely what Fascists do not want.

Very interesting reading........2007-09-27

I heard Mr. Hedges on C-Span the first time I ever heard of him. I cannot remember if it was a review or reading of the book. But what he said made me interested enough to read the book. I found it was very interesting and solid writing.

STORM WARNING RED.......2007-09-22

Everyone concerned with the rising tide of fascism in America under the guise of Christian religious fervor should read this book. People who kill in the name of Jesus Christ are beyond the pale -- devoid of truth and reason. Hedges nails them to the cross they burden others with. The only caveat is that Hedges seems to be as befuddled about Christianity as the ersatz Christians he excoriates. Perhaps he spent too much time in theological cemeteries. Nonetheless, his warning is timely and should be well heeded.

Average customer rating:

Be Militant for at least Once
Characteristic Lewis
5 stars isn't enough
Important Message, Botched Delivery
has it happened yet.... or will it soon?

It Can't Happen Here
Sinclair Lewis
Manufacturer: NAL Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 045121658X

Book Description

The only one of Sinclair Lewis's later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.

Customer Reviews:

Be Militant for at least Once.......2007-05-07

Lee Roscoe has recently (© 2005) adapted Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here to the stage. This play is a militant agitprop work and is available to people who want to produce it for an audience in a militant perspective to fight against the present erring developments of Bush's presidency and to advocate the necessity to impeach him and his vice-president as the last defense against their systematic attack on the Constitution, hence the American people and the World's population. This enables us to rediscover the plot imagined by Sinclair Lewis in the mid 30s who was afraid of the possibility for a populist candidate to become President of the US and lead the country to some kind of fascist dictatorship. Apparently this fear is being revived in the world, or rather in some countries by the war on terror launched by President Bush and that has brought some fairly frightening developments against basic civil rights: the possibility for the police to know what you borrow or check in and out in public libraries and the restriction under which the librarian is not to tell you about it; the negation of habeas corpus for a whole set of people who have been imprisoned in Guantanamo for years without any basic constitutional or plainly universally recognized rights like the possibility to communicate with the outside world, the right to have a lawyer, the right to be informed about the charges that are leveled at them, the right to be tried in a normal court in due time and following proper procedures, etc (the procedure is so unbelievably wrong that quite a few of these prisoners have been released without any charges after several years of detention amounting to so many years of suffering, social cultural or professional damage, and even psychological torturing, and no damages, compensation or reparation when released); and of course the normal reaction of some American people who believed what they were told and started leveling harsh words at opponents and even at times taking harsh measures against opponents. The text of this play is being circulated on the Internet. The same mindset is developing in other countries, like for instance in France where some consider that the election of Nicolas Sarkozy for instance is leading to the same kind of mechanism that will necessarily lead to a police state if not fascism.
The process imagined by Sinclair Lewis is simple: a populist elected candidate and the defense of the absolute freedom of all markets to liberate the creative energy of capitalism and get us out of all possible crises. This will lead to work camps for unemployed people; the ruin of all independent newspapers and the hunting down of all alternative expression and media as unpatriotic if not anti-patriotic; the ruin of all businesses that do not support the policy of the President; the creation of some kind of militia to keep an eye on everyone; the increase of the powers of this militia that would have authority over all other police forces and even over justice. Of course one of the first triggering elements this President would need is some menace from a foreign country, hence a war against this menacing country, be it true or imagined, and a designated accomplice inside the country defined as anarchist, communist or terrorist. And the old world is then perverted enough for fascism to be born in the very sanctuary of human rights and civil liberties, and then "M and M" becomes Militia Man.
It is interesting to see this revival. It reveals several elements that we must keep in mind if we want to understand what is happening in the world. People are really afraid of the future in this changing world. People are afraid of change because it precisely is change and comfort means no change.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine & Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne

Characteristic Lewis.......2007-04-10

As other reviews here have stated, this is not a subtle book. Anyone familiar with Lewis's other works will have no problem recognizing him here: he is heavy-handed and obvious, his writing is ham-fisted and clunkey.

But the book works, for the same reasons his more well known books works. Lewis has a fantastic ear for language and tone. His satire is always spot-on. Sure, his characters are exaggerated to the point of being caricatures, but the kernal of truth is always there amid the hyperbole.

It's not Babbit or Main Street, but a good read for Lewis fans.

5 stars isn't enough.......2007-02-20

While the time isn't clear -- I'd guess shortly after WWII -- it is mandatory reading for anyone who worries about the loss of individual liberties in the US, as well as movement to a "security state", written long before current concerns.

Important Message, Botched Delivery.......2007-02-14

I was drawn to this book by a quote from it I had read: "When fascism comes to America, it will be draped in the flag and carrying a bible." Strong and provocative stuff, no? I wondered why I had never encountered this book before, and why it is not better known. It turns out there is a good reason, and that is because the book is virtually unreadable--apart from that one quotation, apparently.

Lewis's premise is that fascism could establish itself in America with relative ease if the country is sufficiently worried about some threat--in this case, the great depression. The book's ironic title comes up in slightly varied forms in several early conversations. The clear implication is that it certainly could happen here, "it" being the consolidation of power in the hands of a demagogue who offers relief and protection to a frightened nation.

But the path Lewis takes in making this important point is exasperating beyond words. We first must get to know a small-town newspaper editor and his whole tedious family, and attend cocktail parties and picnics with him, and learn that his hired man won't do as he's told around the garden, and on and on. It's as if you know a person has desperately important news that you want to hear, but you must first allow him to recount, in detail, how his business is doing, and what a splash his daughter made at her ballet recital. I gave up on the book after 60 pages or so.

What decided me in the end was a growing conviction that Lewis himself didn't take his subject seriously. The novel's villainous demagogue is named Berzelius (Buzz) Windrip; he becomes President. His bible-thumping supporter is Paul Peter Prang, and the rational small-town journalist is Doremus Jessup--Doremouse to his wife.

I submit that no one who intends to write a serious novel about his country's descent into fascism would choose such cartoonish names for any of his characters, let alone the main ones. Such flippancy causes readers to smile at things that should be frightening and disturbing. It also comforts them with the false assurance that any potential dictator would be immediately recognizable by his outlandish pronouncements or at least would be ridiculous in some way.

It would have been more effective by far to give evil a bland, friendly face, as Orwell did in "1984," and to give the villain a common, ordinary name such as might belong to the fellow across the street. A name like, oh, I don't know--you think one up.

has it happened yet.... or will it soon?.......2006-09-25

" Sinclair Lewis, the first American to receive the Nobel Prize For Literature, wrote this satirical political novel in 1935, a time when the United States and Western Europe had been in a depression for six years. In this novel, Sinclair Lewis asks the question - what if some ambitious politician would use the 1936 presidential election to make himself dictator by promising quick, easy solutions to the depression - just as Hitler had done in Germany in 1933."
As frightening and politically current today as it was then...

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

Average customer rating:

Well researched and analyzed work
Well-written, except for political commentary
Fascinating, yet heavily flawed, and somewhat dishonest.
A good start but needs some more
Excellent

Mussolini's Italy: Life Under the Fascist Dictatorship, 1915-1945
R. J. B. Bosworth
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0143038567

Book Description

With Mussolini Â's Italy, R.J.B. BosworthÂ—the foremost scholar on the subject writing in EnglishÂ—vividly brings to life the period in which Italians participated in one of the twentieth centuryÂ's most notorious political experiments. Il DuceÂ's Fascists were the original totalitarians, espousing a cult of violence and obedience that inspired many other dictatorships, HitlerÂ's first among them. But as Bosworth reveals, many Italians resisted its ideology, finding ways, ingenious and varied, to keep Fascism from taking hold as deeply as it did in Germany. A sweeping chronicle of struggle in terrible times, this is the definitive account of ItalyÂ's darkest hour.

Customer Reviews:

Well researched and analyzed work.......2007-08-26

Bosworth covers a broad topical spectrum, including the historic, social, and political conditions that fostered fascism in Italy; insights into its political doctrine vs. actual application; character studies on its principal figures; and contrasts of it to both Italian Liberalism and German Nazism.

Overall, this book provides a great critical analysis of one 20th century Italy's more enigmatic political movements.

Well-written, except for political commentary.......2007-07-29

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 somewhat 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.

Fascinating, yet heavily flawed, and somewhat dishonest........2007-07-02

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.

A good start but needs some more.......2007-03-31

Bosworth in his novel on Mussolini's Italy makes an effort to show how the fascist regime grew within the state and the extent to which it dominated the state. Fascism was not synonymous with Italian nationalism and Bosworth's explanations of the fascist growth lend credence to the idea that it was slow to take on. He categorizes fascism in various states and his most prevalent is the idea of a northern and southern fascism. This book also does an excellent job of showing how Mussolini's regime permeated the Italian state. The fascist ideals did meet significant resistance with the traditional liberals. The tough stance on labor and the opportunities for the church however drew many allies and allowed Mussolini to take power. One of the points lacking here is that the monarchy played a large role in his rise to power. I feel that Bosworth does not address that issue and I would like to have seen it done more.

Overall this is the best attempt we have on fascist Italy however this book could have been done better. It is incredibly ambitious and either should have been broken into two books or made one book longer. There is a lot of information that is glazed over very quickly leaving some holes in the analysis. If you want an introduction to fascist Italy this is a great place to start but I would not stop here. There are many rich ways to explore the topic and looks at Ray Mosley's Mussolini's Shadow or Dennis Mack Smith's biography of Mussolini are great additions. Understanding how the fascist regime impacted the state and the world make for interesting questions and is something anyone studying World War II should not miss.

Excellent.......2006-09-24

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.

Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (Annals of Communism)

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Powerful, definitive account of Soviet anti-semitism
Important documentation of Soviet horror under Stalin

Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (Annals of Communism)
Laura E. Wolfson
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300084862

Book Description

In the spring and summer of 1952, fifteen Soviet Jews, including five prominent Yiddish writers and poets, were secretly tried and convicted; multiple executions soon followed in the basement of Moscow's Lubyanka prison. The defendants were falsely charged with treason and espionage because of their involvement in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and because of their heartfelt response as Jews to Nazi atrocities on occupied Soviet territory. Stalin had created the committee to rally support for the Soviet Union during World War II, but he then disbanded it after the war as his paranoia mounted about Soviet Jews.

For many years, a host of myths surrounded the case against the committee. Now this book, which presents an abridged version of the long-suppressed transcript of the trial, reveals the Kremlin's machinery of destruction. Joshua Rubenstein provides annotations about the players and events surrounding the case. In a long introduction, drawing on newly released documents in Moscow archives and on interviews with relatives of the defendants in Israel, Russia, and the United States, Rubenstein also sets the trial in historical and political context and offers a vivid account of Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign.

Customer Reviews:

Powerful, definitive account of Soviet anti-semitism.......2004-03-15

Mr. Rubenstein has done an outstanding job as a researcher and writer in giving us this gripping record of Stalin's purge in 1950-52 of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The JAC had been active during WWII in organizing international aid to the besieged Soviets. Despite their vigorous efforts in the struggle against the Nazis, some of the most respected Russian Jewish poets, writers, and cultural figures associated with the JAC were eventually imprisoned on blatantly fabricated charges of espionage, then executed in 1952. Using recently-opened soviet files, he and Mr. Vladimir Naumov have carefully and authoritatively documented this sordid chapter in recent Soviet history.

Important documentation of Soviet horror under Stalin.......2003-11-15

This book documents just one of the horrors of the Soviet regime. While Stalin murdered millions of innocent people who were unlucky enough to have been citizens under his rule, this book tells of the way this evil regime turned on fifteen people whose crime was being Jewish and wanting to examine the Nazi atrocities in the portions of the USSR they occupied.

It is a particularly poignant telling because the authors provide us with excerpts from the transcripts of the trial so you hear the victims and their accusers in their own words. These people were destroyed by the system they tried to serve and help largely because Stalin decided to use the Jews and the fear of paranoid Zionist conspiracies as the Nazis had done.

This is a very valuable book and I am glad it is in print. As part of the Annals of Communism series it provides important and permanent testimony of the criminality of the USSR that had been lied about and hidden for too long.

Amazon.com

In this understated yet scathing memoir, novelist Rosetta Loy intersperses scenes from her affluent childhood with a broader portrait of anti-Semitism in fascist Italy. The otherwise effective translation has softened Loy's original title (in Italian, "The Word Jew") but not her blistering depiction of the Church's complicity in Mussolini's persecution of Jews. Pope Pius XI, an outspoken opponent of state anti-Semitism, died in early 1939. His successor, Eugenio Pacelli, had been a papal nuncio in Germany for 12 years, where he signed the 1933 concordat that urged German Catholics to obey the Nazis (events analyzed at length in John Cornwell's excellent 1999 biography, Hitler's Pope). As Pius XII, Pacelli said little and did nothing to prevent racist genocide. Born in 1931, Loy was just a girl during this dreadful period, but she does not excuse herself or her family for going about their daily lives while their Jewish neighbors were subjected to increasingly restrictive laws and then, in late 1943, transported to the German death camps. The author also relates stirring acts of moral heroism--Catholic priests who denounced anti-Semitism as un-Christian, individuals who sheltered Jews--but her quietly uncompromising book suggests that her parents, good people who found fascism personally distasteful but felt helpless to defy it, were more typical. --Wendy Smith

Book Description

An internationally acclaimed novelist and journalist movingly chronicles her childhood in Rome during World War II, providing a rare account by a Catholic of Jewish persecution and Papal responsibility

In 1937, Rosetta Loy was a privileged five-year-old growing up in the heart of the well-to-do Catholic intelligentsia of Rome. But her childhood world of velvet and lace, airy apartments, indulgent nannies, and summers in the mountains was also the world of Mussolini's fascist regime and the increasing oppression of Italian Jews. Loy interweaves the two Italys of her early years, shifting with powerful effect from a lyrical evocation of the many comforts of her class to the accumulation of laws stipulating where Jews were forbidden to travel and what they were not allowed to buy, eat, wear, and read. She reveals the willful ignorance of her own family as one by one their neighbors disappeared, and indicts journalists and intellectuals for their blindness and passivity. And with hard-won clarity, she presents a dispassionate record of the role of the Vatican and the Catholic leadership in the devastation of Italy's Jews.

Written in crystalline prose, First Words offers an uncommon perspective on the Holocaust. In the process, Loy reveals one writer's struggle to reconcile her memories of a happy childhood with her adult knowledge that, hidden from her young eyes, one of the world's most horrifying tragedies was unfolding.

Customer Reviews:

A very important book.......2004-01-04

Rosetta Loy opens this book with her first memories of childhood as a young girl in Rome in the early 30s. She then paints the picture from that time to 1943.

This book actually tells two stories - first the account of Rosetta's life during that period of time and second the historical facts of the time.
The entire book impressed me, but two things about this book absolutely AMAZED me.

1. Roessetta Loy's voice. On the first page she is a young girl tended by a nanny, the reader is treated with the perspective of life at this point in time from the unusual view of a curious and intelligent child. As the book progresses and Rossetta ages the story changes in vocabulary and scope.
2. Ms. Loy presents the key points of political and legal changes in her church, city and country with simply clarity. This is the first book that I have read on the subject that didn't attempt go overboard on explanations, excuses or "what ifs". Ms. Loy states the facts of legal changes and racial politics of Italy at the time without attempting to question `how', `why', `to what end' and `what if'. Instead the reader will hear these questions echo in their own mind.

This is a powerful book. It is written in simple style and easy to read. It could be read in a day or two, but if you are like me when you get to the end you will want to read it again.

A Splendid, thought-provoking book!.......2000-08-18

I could not disagree more with the previous "book critic". This book is not a lambasting of individual Catholics or of the many individual priests that helped to save many Jews. One need only look at Ms. Loy's characterization of Pope Pius XI and his very anti-semetic stance to see that this book in no way sees all Catholics as heartless beasts. What it does show is that with the on-slot of Pope Pius XII's reign, the organized Catholic body-politic did nothing privately or publicly to condemn the atrocities committed against Jews at home or abroad in Nazi Germany. There were over 1200 Jews in Rome alone that could have been "hidden" in the Vatican...but no, the response to that was that Pope Pius XII could have been arrested. Getting arrested seems very tame to Jesus being crucified, does it not? All I can say is that, along with the reading of this very touching book by Ms. Loy, I would also recommend everyone out there supplimenting the reading of this book with Mr. Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope".

Another false perpetuation.......2000-08-06

The media seems to be eating up every book that blasts the Catholic Church and Pope Pius XII...here's another attempt to cover up the heroics of the Church during the Nazi era....

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What IS Fascism, anyway?
A Thorough Exploration of Fascism as a Movement and Ideology

Fascists
Michael Mann
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521538556

Book Description

Focusing on the six countries in which fascism became most dominant (Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Spain), this study analyzes the beliefs and actions of people who became fascists in an attempt to view fascism through its own eyes. The result is an original depiction of fascism as "violent, transcendent nation-statism", and a unique perspective differing from other previous theories of fascism.

Customer Reviews:

What IS Fascism, anyway?.......2007-02-12

If asked to define Fascism, I could say "It is a vague epithet used by people who have no bloody clue what they are talking about, and who could not give a coherent definition of it if they tried." And this would cover nearly all uses of the term in the mainstream media and the internet.

But there are people who care about defining their terms. If you are one of them, Michael Mann will give you a definition of fascism that is among the best. Not definitive, because there is no definitive definition, but thoughtfully derived and well-supported.

Mann defines fascism as "the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism." And he is nice enough to give you the definition on page 13, though you have to read the entire book to understand how it was derived. This definition will be clearer if I explain the terms.

Transcendence: Belief that the state can transcend social conflict and blend all social classes into a harmonious whole. Belief in the power of political ideology to transcend human nature and produce a better world. Cleansing (ethnic): Favoring one or more ethnic or racial groups over others, either by granting special privileges or imposing disabilities; deportation of ethnic minorities, or worse. Cleansing (political): Silencing the political opposition so that the transcendent aims of fascism can be realized. Restricting the freedom of speech, outlawing opposition parties, imprisoning political opponents (or worse) and indoctrinating youth in fascist principles. Statism: Promoting a high degree of state intervention in personal, social, or economic matters. Belief that the state can accomplish anything. Nationalism: Belief in the inherent unity of a population with distinct linguistic, physical, or cultural characteristics and its identification with a nation-state. Belief that the nation possesses special attributes that make it superior to other nations in some or all ways. Paramilitarism: "Grass roots", populist squadrism aimed at coercing opponents and obtaining popular approbation by acting as a supplementary police force.

An interesting debate could be had over whether Republicans or Democrats have more fascist attributes. Given the Democrats' love of affirmative action (which amounts to shutting out qualified Jews, Asians, and Whites from universities in the same way that fascists limited Jewish admissions to universities to make room for "disadvantaged" non-Jews), their support for repressive "speech codes" on university campuses, their firm belief in statism, and their naive belief that human behavior can be changed to create a "new man", it could be argued that the Democrats are more like fascists than the Republicans. The Republicans have it over the Democrats on nationalism, of course. Neither has an edge in paramilitarism -- the few right-wing "militia" groups that exist make no attempt to influence elections or intimidate rivals. Development of this comparison is left to the reader as an exercise.

Reading Mann's book -- especially if you have read other books on this subject or have a good grounding in 20th century European history -- will make it clear how these fascist attributes all tie together into one nasty whole. Mann's scholarship overall is very good, though his conclusions have been criticized in part by some (e.g. R.J.B. Bosworth and Robert Paxton, who are both worth reading). Notably, however, Mann (unlike Bosworth and Paxton, who are both historians) includes some simple statistical analysis to disprove widely-held notions about Fascist demographics. I think he does this fairly convincingly. I would have used a multivariate model myself, but if Mann had done so he would have lost most of the book's audience immediately; he has however reviewed such studies and obviously understands quantitative methods. Perhaps the use of even simple quantitative methods is what irks historians Bosworth and Paxton. But in my opinion, history needs a lot more of this, not less.

After reviewing the rise of Fascism in Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, and Spain, with references to authoritarian regimes elsewhere (e.g. Portugal and Greece) Mann winds up by saying that "Fascism was a product of a sudden, half-baked attempt at liberalization amid social crisis." It occurred in countries in the south and east of Europe that had conservative and strong but decaying executive branches and relatively weak (and new) parliamentary branches. They were "dual states" without the firmly established democratic traditions that existed in the north and west. Fascists could work with the conservative executive branch to seize power under such conditions. But sometimes the conservatives just seized power and shut the Fascists out (as occurred in Romania and Hungary until late in the war).

Some of Mann's final conclusions are dubious. He denies that "Islamic Fascism" is fascism because it is religiously and not politically based. But he has just concluded a discussion of the Romanian "Legion of the Archangel Michael," a fascist organization with, as the name suggests, essential religious characteristics. And a few pages earlier he has talked of Franco's self-described "Crusade" against the Spanish Republican priest-killers. To compound the oddness, he also says that "Islamic Fascism" is not fascism because it is not "nationalist", apparently forgetting that many Muslim nations are arbitrary creations in which nationalism would make no sense anyway (as we are seeing in Iraq) and that the only meaningful solidarity is religious.

Mann concludes by saying that "fascist-leaning movements are most likely to occur in the south of the world" if "capitalist exploitation" of the south (PC for Third World) by the north (PC for First World) and "widening north-south inequality" continue. What cave has he been living in for the last 20 years? Does he read the Economist? Well, since "north-south inequality" is shrinking not widening, and "capitalist exploitation" is bringing joy to the world, I guess all is well.

A Thorough Exploration of Fascism as a Movement and Ideology.......2006-03-19

Michael Mann's Fascists offers a thorough exploration of Fascism as a movement and ideology with a view to historical, geographical, social, national, and conceptual differences. Readers inside and outside of academies, concerning about Holocaust or other contemporary extremist disruptions in human history, will acquire their own lessons from the book.

The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States

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The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States
Gerald Horne
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0814736866
Release Date: 2006-11-20

Book Description

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

"With his characteristic verve, Professor Gerald Horne has written an excellent book about the fascinating and mysterious Lawrence Dennis. This pairing of the leftist black intellectual Horne and the racially-closeted fascist Dennis makes for an exciting exploration of obscure terrain that warrants more notice. Professor Horne has performed an important service by revealing so vividly Dennis's strange but instructive career."
—Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School

"I am almost certainly not alone in expressing surprise that Lawrence Dennis, the principal American intellectual fascist, was an African American who 'passed' for white. In the process of explaining Dennis's rise and how his secret minority status shaped his political extremism, Gerald Horne has researched and written a compelling and significant history of American fascism."
—Kenneth Janken, author of White: The Biography of Walter White, Mr. NAACP

What does it mean that Lawrence Dennis—arguably the "brains" behind U.S. fascism—was born black but spent his entire adult life passing for white? Born in Atlanta in 1893, Dennis began life as a highly touted African American child preacher, touring nationally and arousing audiences with his dark-skinned mother as his escort. However, at some point between leaving prep school and entering Harvard University, he chose to abandon his family and his former life as an African American in order to pass for white. Dennis went on to work for the State Department and on Wall Street, and ultimately became the public face of U.S. fascism, meeting with Mussolini and other fascist leaders in Europe. He underwent trial for sedition during World War II, almost landing in prison, and ultimately became a Cold War critic before dying in obscurity in 1977.

Based on extensive archival research, The Color of Fascism blends biography, social history, and critical race theory to illuminate the fascinating life of this complex and enigmatic man. Gerald Horne links passing and fascism, the two main poles of Dennis's life, suggesting that Dennis's anger with the U.S. as a result of his upbringing in Jim Crow Georgia led him to alliances with the antagonists of the U.S. and that his personal isolation which resulted in his decision to pass dovetailed with his ultimate isolationism.

Dennis's life is a lasting testament to the resilience of right-wing thought in the U.S. The first full-scale biographical portrait of this intriguing figure, The Color of Fascism also links the strange career of a prominent American who chose to pass.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a History of Nazi Germany

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Thorough
Journey into Hell!
Considered The Definitive Book on Nazi Germany, Publ 1959/60, 1245 pp, 5 Stars

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a History of Nazi Germany

Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: B000EA3XL4

Product Description

The definitive work on the subject. It explains the early history of the Nazi Party and how it came into power,how it maintained it's power and how it finally fell. All of this is done from a historian's point of view with neither blame nor apology. Mr. Shirer has no agenda to follow but simply lays out the facts, albeit in a highly readble and interesting way.

Customer Reviews:

Thorough.......2007-09-01

I recommend this book to everyone. Whether or not you're a fan of the current presidential administration, reading this book will give you valuable insight into Nazi Germany, so next time some 21 year old anarchist is comparing George Bush to Hitler, you can say "That is a pretty stupid comparison."

Journey into Hell!.......2006-10-21

I have studied two years of German in college for my BS degree. My dad grew up in Nazi Germany. We were not the best of friends. Yet, this was a very fascinating book to me! I bought it because I figured that Hitler was a foreurunner of the Antichrist of the Bible and maybe this book would give me insight into his character. And it did. Yet I found some strange humor in it as well.Both my dad and one of my German professors had used the expression "he ought to be shot!" before as a reference to the frequent use of firing squads in the Third Reich. There is some of that gallows humor in there. Like a description of the quaiity built crematoriums for the death camps-made with the finsest of materials and German craftsmanship! My dad always was big on German craftsmanship and efficiency. I even found myself joking with my therapist about how cool it would be to become a dictator like Hitler where I could put all my enemies into concentarion camps, have them executed and have it filmed as the master had done!
I seemed to know more from that book about Hitler that my dad did. I discovered Hitler was a failed artist. My dad had tought he was a house painter. As my dad had terminal cancer and we visited once a month with him, we could talk about how he was living in Romania when Hitler invaded Russia and when they were repulsed that he and my aunt Margit had been evacuated out of Romania by Hitler. My dad was pretty tight-lipped about his childhood; yet this book actually gave us something to talk about befeore he died. What did we have in common? Quantum Theory? NOt! Bible Prophecy? NOt! We could discuss old "Uncle Adolph" as he had once called him!
So, I did see a twisted sort of humor to it. Just like on a News Radio Station from the Eastern US I had heard about a man who had a custom license plate in Virginia that said ZYKLON B on it. And how the state of Virginia had the plate revoked when they found out what it was. In Shirer's book, I discovered that ZYKLON B was the chemical that IG Farben had produced which Hitler used to carry out the "Final Solution" of the Jewish problem.
This book is jam packed with all kinds of trivia and interesting details. Just like I said, my dad grew up in Hitler Third Reich and did not know some ot these things!
There is an interesting lesson in this book in the life of Hitler. Hitler went to Vienna to study to be a painter. They rejected his application. So, he blamed this on the Jews and made it his ambition to erradicate them from the face of the earth-The Final Solution. Or in more modern times, I had seen on TV how the woman who had prayer banned from the public schools hadd been discriminated against in church; so she did not want to make her kids have to pray in school! Sometimes, discrimination comes back to haunt people!

Considered The Definitive Book on Nazi Germany, Publ 1959/60, 1245 pp, 5 Stars.......2006-09-07

If you only could read and own one history book on Nazi Germany, this would be it. Don't let the 1245 pages daunt you, this is a very well written and readable book on the subject. Shirer was apparently a journalist and started research on the book when he first went to Germany in 1925. He spent 5-1/2 years writing it. The title pretty much explains it, it covers the rise of Adolf Hitler to the eventual fall of Berlin. There are other history books that cover specific aspects of the Nazi's, such as the recommended 2002 publication of Antony Beevor's The Fall of Berlin 1945, but this is the one history book on it all. Considering how the events covered set up the modern world, this should be essential reading for everyone on the planet.

I see that this is the first review for the hardcopy version of the book, which is the version of the text that I have. Those wanting to read other reviews should go to the paperback version site.

Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano

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Great book on a sorry personality
WOW. this is one of the most fascinating stories of World War 2
Good background for Ciano's diary
Couldn't put it down
Very good, could have been better

Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano
Ray Moseley
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300079176

Book Description

Married to Benito Mussolini's favorite daughter Edda, Galeazzo Ciano was a brilliant, ambitious and ruthless young Italian. Throughout his period in office Ciano kept a diary so detailed and revealing that both Mussolini and Hitler sought to impound and destroy it. The diary was smuggled out of Italy by Edda, who sought unsuccessfully to trade it for Ciano's life. The diary was later acquired by the American spy, Allen W. Dulles (later head of the CIA) and published in full in the Chicago Daily News. It remains one of the classic insider accounts of the workings of the Fascist and Nazi governments. Ciano's glamorous, violent, and promiscuous life was acted out at the highest levels of European politics and society. There has never been a biography of him in English: this is one gripping read.

Customer Reviews:

Great book on a sorry personality.......2007-05-29

I had some respect for Ciano before I read this, thinking he was the conscience of the Italian people. In getting to know Ciano by reading this book I realized that he was a mirrow image of IL Duce, including the womanizing part. His wife, Duce's daughter, was just as vain and an equally sorry figure. The author does a splendid job of researching old documents, talking to some of the older survivors and friends for first hand info.

WOW. this is one of the most fascinating stories of World War 2.......2007-02-06

This is truly one of the most disturbing stories in World War 2. Ciano would become the epitome of everything hated in Italy. He would claim responsibility for the invasion of Albania and Greece and blamed for some of the worst defeats in Italy's history. Much of this is undeserved as Mussolini was calling many of the shots and the fall out between the two became apparent. Had Ciano been stronger and not captured under the personality cult of Mussolini the break would have been bigger and he would have opposed the war shattering the Duce ideas of a strong Italian army. The diaries that Ciano wrote would be key aspects of Nuremberg and both the allies and axis sought to acquire them. The story of the acquisition is heart wrenching and Edda Ciano's bravery is truly remarkable. What she went through from the execution of her husband to the estrangement of her father Mussolini was simply amazing. This is a must read for those who want to understand how World War 2 unfolded and the war that Italy played. It is a well written biography and truly a great addition to the historiography.

Good background for Ciano's diary.......2003-12-06

Moseley has written a readable and well researched book on the life of the enigmatic Count Ciano. It is certainly the first comprehensive study of Ciano to appear in English. Ciano is worthy of the attention of anyone interested in Twentieth Century Europe, diplomacy, or World War II. Moseley does a good job of revealing Ciano's evolution from a blind follower of Mussolini to active and effective foil. There can be little doubt that in anything less than an unrestricted dictatorship, Ciano's efforts to keep Italy out of WWII would have succeeded. In the end Ciano's undisguished contempt of the Nazi Heirarchy cost him his life. I recommend this book as a precursor to reading Ciano's diary.

Couldn't put it down.......2003-11-24

This is a superb read and Mr Mosely coveres an intensely complex period with majesty and skill. Here and there it is a bit difficult who the subject is of a sentence, as the relative pronoun sometimes doesn't come after the immediately preceding subject of a sentence, but that happens rarely. Mr Moseley's reads like a thriller, but at the same time is a thoroughly researched, critical reading of a tragic, through fascinating period of history. I cannot recommend this book more highly for anyone interested obviously in history, but also for those interested in human behviour and our ability to deceive and contradict ourselves. Do read!

Very good, could have been better.......2000-08-04

This is a good book and Mr. Moseley is to be congratulated on a decent job. He has done his research and provided a vivid account of Ciano and the people around him. I do not give this book five stars, however, because it needs editing. It seems in some places Mr. Moseley loses his strong narrative as he relates diary entry after diary entry - seemingly with little connection. Also, the book could have used a glossary containing the names of the principal players in the Italian fascist government. These faults lie not with Mr. Moseley as much as with his editor/publisher. Nevertheless, I rcommend this book as one that provides a fascinating slice of WWII history.

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Music in Fascist Italy
Harvey Sachs
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0297790048

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