• The apprenticeship of a statesman, 1842-1892-- a disastrous beginning - the presidency of the council of ministers, 1892-93-- into the wilderness - in opposition, 1894-1901-- the Zanardelli-Giolitti government, 1901-1903-- Giolitti's second ministry, "Doing It Right", 1904-1905-- the long ministry, 1906-1909-- domestic reform and war, 1910-1914-- a second political exile, 1914-1920-- Giolitti and the crisis of the liberal state, 1920-1928.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This work examines the political life of Italy's most notable prime minister after Cavour. Alongside Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George, Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928) stands out as one of the major liberal reformers of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe. Giolitti emerges not as a transitional figure leading fledgling Italy into modern democracy, but as a staunch adherent of 19th-century elitist liberalism trying to navigate the new tide of mass politics. The author's research offers an insight into Giolitti as statesman and, through him, a vantage point on the development of Italy during a critical period. Giolitti's troubled relationship with mass politics defined his years in office. A life-long bureaucrat aloof from the electorate, Giolitti introduced near universal male suffrage - even while commenting that first "teaching everyone to read and write" would be a more reasonable route - and tolerated labour strikes. Rather than reform the state as a concession to populism, however, Giolitti sought to accommodate the politics of the piazza under the roof of liberal parliamentarianism, first in his pursuit of coalitions with Socialist and Catholic groups, and finally, at the end of his political life, in a failed courtship with Fascism.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780275968748 20160528

• Introduction: war and revolution in Europe, 1789-1945-- Part I. Origins and Dynamics:
• 1. Italy and Germany from unification to militant dictatorship, 1860-1933--
• 2. Conquest, foreign and domestic, in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany-- Part II. Foreign Policies and Military Instruments:
• 3. Fascism and Italian foreign polity: continuity and break--
• 4. The Italian army at war, 1940-43: a study in combat effectiveness--
• 5. The Prussian idea of freedom and the 'career open to talent': battlefield initiative and social ascent from Prussian reform to Nazi revolution, 1807-1944-- Conclusion: expansionist zeal, fighting power, and staying power in the Italian and German dictatorships.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book offers a genuinely comparative analysis of the dictatorships that launched the Second World War: their origins, nature, dynamics, and common ruin. It seeks to understand their similarities and differences historically, without recourse to failed generic concepts such as 'Fascism.' The result is an unconventional and compelling analytical 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 three chapters that interpret and explain Mussolini's poorly understood foreign policy and the character and performance of the military instruments upon which Fascist and Nazi success chiefly depended - the Italian and German armies. The chapter on the German army and the conclusion - which dissects the causes of the notable 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 prompted Germany's fight to the last cartridge in 1944-45.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780521582087 20160528

Fascist Ideology is a comparative study of the expansionist foreign policies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from 1922 to 1945. It provides an overview of the ideological motivations behinfd fascist expasionism and their impact on fascist policies, and explores the two main issues which have dominated the historiographical debates on the nature of fascist expansionism: whether Italy's and Germany's particular expansionist tendencies can be attributed to a set of generic fascist values, or were shaped by the long-term, uniquely national ambitions and developments since unification; whether the pursuit of expansion was opportunistic or followed a grand design in each case. This book is a fascinating study of the expansionist visions of Hitler and Mussolini and it enlightens our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the fascist policies of Italy and Germany to the end of the Second World War.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780415216111 20160527
Fascist Ideology is a comparative study of the expansionist foreign policies of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany from 1922 to 1945. One of the most extensively debated features of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany was their propensity for aggressive, large-scale territorial expansion. From the initial goal of revising the post-1918 territorial settlement to its culmination in the Second World War, territorial expansion became a defining characteristic of the two regimes ideologies and policies, and played a crucial role in their eventual collapse in 1943-45. Fascist Ideology provides a comparative investigation of fascist expansionism by focusing on the close relations between ideology and action under Mussolini and Hitler. With an overview of the ideological motivations behind fascist expansionism and their impact on fascist policies, this book explores the two main issues which have dominated the historiographical debates on the nature of fascist expansionism: whether Italy's and Germany's particular expansionist tendancies can be attributed to a set of generic fascist values, or were shaped by the long term, uniquely national ambitions and developments since unification; whether the pursuit of expansion was opportunistic or followed a grand design in each case. This book is a fascinating study of the expansionist visions of Hitler and Mussolini and it enlightens our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of the fascist policies of Italy and Germany to the end of the Second World War.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780415216128 20160527

On the decalogues of Fascist propaganda under Mussolini commented by the author in their historic context.