Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

by MacGregor Knox

This book offers a genuinely comparative analysis of the dictatorships that launched the Second World War: their origins, nature, dynamics, and common ruin. It provides an unconventional and compelling overview from territorial unification in the 1860s to national catastrophe in 1943/45 that places Fascism and Nazism firmly in the tradition of revolutionary mass politics inaugurated in the French Revolution. Set within that overview are chapters analyzing Mussolini's poorly understood foreign policy and the character and performance of the military instruments upon which success chiefly depended-the Italian and German armies. The chapter on the German army and the conclusion-which dissects the causes of the striking disparities between the two dictatorships in expansionist appetite, fighting power, and staying power-argue that a unique synthesis of Prusso-German military tradition and Nazi revolution propelled Germany's fight to the last cartridge in 1943-45.

Genres: Italy, Germany

276 pages, Hardcover

First published June 12, 2000

Reviews

[Nick (Cookemupski) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very good. It was very difficult to read because of the vocabulary in it. If you like history and politics then you will like this book very much.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Common Destiny provides an excellent overview of the Fascist and Nazi regimes that existed during the World War II era. Macgregor Knox sets out to provide the reader a comparison between the two in how they came to power, maintained power and dissolved. The first two chapters take an even wider view and asses the various factors that led to unification and how those factors allowed Hitler and Mussolini to take power. While the book is somewhat dated particularly with regards to recent scholarship on Italy it provides an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to compare these regimes. It serves as an excellent overview on how these regimes conducted military and foreign policy as well as the prospects for each. The book is well written and perfect for a starting look at these regimes.