ABSTRACT

In Mussolini and Fascist Italy Martin Blinkhorn explains the significance of the man, the movement and the regime which dominated Italian life between 1922 and the closing stages of the Second World War.  He examines:  

  • those aspects of post-Risorgimento Italy which provided the longterm context vital to an understanding of Fascism  
  • the social and political convulsions wrought by economic change after 1890 and by Italy’s intervention in the First World War   
  • the Fascist movement's rapid rise from obscurity to power and the subsequent establishment of Mussolini’s dictatorship  
  • the history of the Fascist regime until its demise during the Second World War  
  • the ways in which Italian Fascism has been understood by contemporary analysts and by historians.

The third edition of this best-selling Lancaster Pamphlet provides an expanded and fully updated analysis. New features include additional material on Fascist totalitarianism and a completely revised consideration of the ways in which Fascism has been interpreted.

chapter 1|3 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|10 pages

The setting: liberal Italy, 1861–1915

chapter 3|10 pages

The seedbed of fascism

chapter 4|11 pages

Fascism’s conquest of power, 1919–25

chapter 5|21 pages

Italy under Fascism

chapter 6|9 pages

Diplomacy and imperialism, 1922–36

chapter 8|11 pages

Interpreting Italian Fascism