ABSTRACT
Italian troops usually fought with Italian weapons — not because they did not value German weapons, but because Hitler would not provide them without German troops attached. For most readers and writers of English, the Italian war effort is viewed as vacillating between tragedy and farce. It is clear that many of Italy's problems stemmed from a lack of resources, a relatively late industrialization, and a small industrial base. But linguistic ignorance is not solely to blame, since a strong echo of wartime propaganda and a residual nationalism is apparent in books by both popular and academic historians, who tend to view the Second World War as a struggle of the forces of light against those of darkness. The war becomes a crusade by the Anglo-American powers finally and for all time to make the world safe for democracy by defeating the duplicitous enemy to the east and the technocratic barbarians on the Rhine.
