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A review by komet2020
Mussolini's Daughter: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe by Caroline Moorehead
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I was curious to read MUSSOLINI'S DAUGHTER: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe" once I learned it had been published. Its author, Caroline Moorehead, I came to respect from having read several years ago her book, A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France, which had made a profound and poignant impression on me.
Edda Mussolini (1910-1994) was Benito Mussolini's eldest child, and his favorite. The book goes into considerable detail to trace the arc of Edda's life, as well as that of her parents and her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, who had served as Italy's Foreign Minister in the late 1930s and during much of World War II. Frankly, Edda did not stand out for me as a distinctive historical figure in her own right, except for the influence she sometimes exerted on her father and her role in spiriting out of Italy, Ciano's diaries, which were of considerable historical value.
What this book succeeds in doing is conveying to the reader the impact that Mussolini's rule had on Italy during his lifetime and beyond. That is what fascinated me the most, because unlike Germany under Hitler, I hadn't much of an awareness before reading Mussolini's Daughter of how the Fascist Party had insinuated itself in the life and culture of Italy between 1922 and 1943. But what Caroline Moorehead had to say about this period aptly summed up Benito Mussolini's effect on Italy ---
"... Mussolini had been revered by many, perhaps most Italians with an almost mystical devotion. His genius had been to understand that faith allows people to really believe that mountains can be moved. 'Illusion,' as he said long before he came to power, 'is, perhaps, the only reality in life.' He knew how to speak to them, play on their bad sides, their weaknesses and credulity, their scant political education, their tendency to bully and prevaricate and to prize above all the appearance of things. Mussolinisimo was a rite, a liturgy. And while social reforms were changing the lives of many Italians, they enjoyed the sense of success, the sporting triumphs, the paid holidays, the feeling that they had joined the Great Powers, that Italy belonged to them, 'the aristocracy of healthy ordinary people' and not to the decaying nobility. They were proud to be Italians. Mussolini's error was to be seduced by Hitler and allow himself to be convinced that weak, impoverished Italy could actually have any sway over a country as large and powerful as Germany; and to misread the Italians' aversion to racism, and their attachment to ... the comforts and reassurance of bourgeois life. They had not wanted to be warriors, new men, or breeders of little soldiers."
For anyone with an interest in Italian history, Mussolini's Daughter fits the bill.
Edda Mussolini (1910-1994) was Benito Mussolini's eldest child, and his favorite. The book goes into considerable detail to trace the arc of Edda's life, as well as that of her parents and her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, who had served as Italy's Foreign Minister in the late 1930s and during much of World War II. Frankly, Edda did not stand out for me as a distinctive historical figure in her own right, except for the influence she sometimes exerted on her father and her role in spiriting out of Italy, Ciano's diaries, which were of considerable historical value.
What this book succeeds in doing is conveying to the reader the impact that Mussolini's rule had on Italy during his lifetime and beyond. That is what fascinated me the most, because unlike Germany under Hitler, I hadn't much of an awareness before reading Mussolini's Daughter of how the Fascist Party had insinuated itself in the life and culture of Italy between 1922 and 1943. But what Caroline Moorehead had to say about this period aptly summed up Benito Mussolini's effect on Italy ---
"... Mussolini had been revered by many, perhaps most Italians with an almost mystical devotion. His genius had been to understand that faith allows people to really believe that mountains can be moved. 'Illusion,' as he said long before he came to power, 'is, perhaps, the only reality in life.' He knew how to speak to them, play on their bad sides, their weaknesses and credulity, their scant political education, their tendency to bully and prevaricate and to prize above all the appearance of things. Mussolinisimo was a rite, a liturgy. And while social reforms were changing the lives of many Italians, they enjoyed the sense of success, the sporting triumphs, the paid holidays, the feeling that they had joined the Great Powers, that Italy belonged to them, 'the aristocracy of healthy ordinary people' and not to the decaying nobility. They were proud to be Italians. Mussolini's error was to be seduced by Hitler and allow himself to be convinced that weak, impoverished Italy could actually have any sway over a country as large and powerful as Germany; and to misread the Italians' aversion to racism, and their attachment to ... the comforts and reassurance of bourgeois life. They had not wanted to be warriors, new men, or breeders of little soldiers."
For anyone with an interest in Italian history, Mussolini's Daughter fits the bill.