Anthony L. Cardoza

Recasting the Duce for the New Century: Recent Scholarship on Mussolini and Italian Fascism*

Benedetto Croce’s well-known dictum that “all history is contemporary history” clearly applies to the attention Benito Mussolini has received both in the scholarly community and in the mass media over the past decade. Most historians still agree that the Duce was the principal architect, chief interpreter, and dominant figure of Italian Fascism. Without his combination of tactical skills, ruthlessness, and charisma, it is hard to imagine the Fascists coming to power, let alone ruling Italy for more than two decades. As a result, the story of his life and the history of the regime have become deeply intertwined. Yet unlike that of his Axis partner Adolf Hitler, who continues to be universally regarded as the very incarnation of evil, the reputation of the Italian dictator has become an ever more bitterly contested terrain in the last twenty years, one shaped as much by contemporary political considerations and enduring ideological conflicts as by new research findings.

Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism. By Simon Levis Sullam. Translated by Sergio Knipe and Oona Smyth. Italian and Italian American Studies. Edited by Stanislao G. Pugliese. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. x+206.

Recommended Citation Cardoza PhD, Anthony. Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism. By Simon Levis Sullam. Translated by Sergio Knipe and Oona Smyth. Italian and Italian American Studies. Edited by Stanislao G. Pugliese. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Pp. x+206.

95.00 (cloth);

95.00 (cloth);

69.99 (e-book).

69.99 (e-book).. The Journal of Modern History, 89, 4: 966-968, 2017. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, History: Faculty Publications and Other Works, http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/694372