Il Duce: The Life Of Benito Mussolini

by Christopher Hibbert

In the first full-length biography written of Mussolini following World War II, Hibbert presents a straightforward account of a complicated, contradictory man. Hibbert moves quickly from Mussolini's childhood to his imprisonment in Switzerland, from his experience as a soldier to his founding of the Fascist party and his rise to power, from his control over the Italian people to his arrest and escape from Gran Sasso and, finally, to his grim end at the hands of a mob. Hibbert portrays Mussolini not as an ego-driven, power-mad buffoon, but instead as a flawed, basically conventional (if authoritarian) politician who was unable to separate his own ambitions from the welfare of his country.

"Mussolini held important political cards during the critical days of WW II. Unlike Franco, he played them badly." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)

Audio Cassette

Published June 1, 2000

About the author

Christopher Hibbert, MC, FRSL, FRGS (5 March 1924 - 21 December 2008) was an English writer, historian and biographer. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of many books, including Disraeli, Edward VII, George IV, The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, and Cavaliers and Roundheads.

Described by Professor Sir John Plumb as "a writer of the highest ability and in the New Statesman as "a pearl of biographers," he established himself as a leading popular historian/biographer whose works reflected meticulous scholarship.