Mussolini's Roman Empire

by Denis Mack Smith

322 pages Viking Adult (June 22, 1976) English

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Military History, 20th Century

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Denis Mack Smith was an English historian.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The question of whether or not Mussolini sought to rebuild the Roman Empire during his reign has never been truly answered and this book does not seek to do so. While mistitled the book does offer a very good account and narrative of Mussolini's tenure in office. It is a basic overview of foreign policy and how the world viewed Italy during his reign. Dennis Mack Smith is an excellent historian and his biography of Mussolini is among the best that can be found although it is written more than a decade after this book. This is a great start to understanding what occurred via Italy during the World War II era. The book goes beyond a simple biography of Mussolini and does try to take in a snapshot of Italy as a whole. It is a decent place to start for a narrative but this should not be taken as the complete picture. RJ Bosworth's newest book Mussolini's Italy is a great source for what occurred in Italy both domestically and from a foreign policy perspective. While this book was great at the time it was published one can probably find more complete references elsewhere. The information here is still mostly good and has been challenged in some ways but it can be an excellent start to understanding Italy in World War II.

[Ratratrat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ovviamente un libro serio e documentato come tutti quelli dell'Autore. Ciò che mi colpisce di più è l'accento sull'acquiescenza degli italiani, completamente addormentati dalla propaganda. Addirittura gli stessi fascisti e Mussolini stesso sembrano ipnotizzati dalla loro stessa descrizione fantastica del mondo. Dei fascisti, Balbo ci fa la figura migliore, mentre con Ciano l'autore è implacabile. personaggio da approfondire a parte, Badoglio.
Il libro però a mio parere si conclude troppo rapidamente. La guerra e poi... un po' di conduzione e nulla della fine. Nulla della repubblica di Salò, come se non fosse mai esistita.

[James Horgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The British view of the Italian's in the Second World War is that they were rather clownish. We never hated them as we did the Germans. Thus the British with 30,000 troops in Egypt routed 250,000 Italians. This book reinforces that stereotype as it follows Mussolini's ill-fated career trying to make Italy the predominant Mediterranean power in building a colonial empire.

Mussolini started life as a newspaper editor and seems to have come to believe every puffy headline about himself. He was far more interested in appearance than reality, surrounding himself with yes-men and believing their grandiose claims about Italian rearmament, which regularly multiplied the size of the Italian air force and army by a factor of four.

He loved to gain intelligence from phone taps and believed any nonsense gathered this way over sensible briefings from the security services.

His main campaigns were in Albania and Ethiopia. Both were shambolic, particularly the latter, and proved a huge drain on the Treasury, a fact which was also hidden from Mussolini.

Mussolini hoped to be the senior partner with Germany, but mismanaged diplomacy to make himself almost redundant after the Battle of France, declaring war late and barely managing to capture any French territory, with losses higher than his opponents. The Germans were not fooled and placed no reliance on Italy in succeeding battles.

The book is interesting but somewhat repetitive. Mack Smith doesn't like Mussolini (that's fine). Mussolini is a buffoon and no ameliorating qualities can be found in him. Perhaps more detail and fewer purple passages would have made the account more interesting.

[RK Byers · Rating 2 out of 5]

you talk about an oddball book!

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for college history class.