Christopher Duggan

Christopher Duggan

By ADRIAN TAHOURDIN

Christopher Duggan, who has died aged fifty-seven, was a valued contributor to the TLS, writing with elegance and insight on twentieth-century Italy. His particular area of expertise was the Fascist period ��� he was awarded the Wolfson Prize for History for Fascist Voices: An intimate history of Mussolini���s Italy (2012), which the TLS reviewer called ���an impressive and very readable work���. But he ranged more widely, and wrote eloquently about literary figures such as Gabriele d���Annunzio.

Duggan���s first review for the TLS, in 1985, was of a book about General Carlo Alberto dalla Chiesa, the anti-Mafia Prefect of Palermo who was assassinated in September 1982. Duggan concluded his review: ���If the present war against the Mafia is to be effective, the testimony of such men as [the informant] Tommaso Buscetta needs cautious evaluation. Excessive zeal fosters feelings of victimization, and such feelings have their roots deep in Sicilian history���.

Christopher Duggan in the TLS: 

"Under a volcano": a review of The View from Vesuvius by Nelson Moe (February 14, 2003)
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"Blessed are they": a review of The Pike: Gabriele d���Annunzio, poet, seducer and preacher of war by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (March 8, 2013) 

"Afflicting the city": a review of The Skin by Curzio Malaparte, translated by David Moore (January 24, 2014)

"Divergent futures": a review of The Emperor of Ice Cream by Dan Gunn (April 3, 2015)