The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi

by Alexander Stille

Award-winning author Alexander Stille has been called ?one of the best English-language writers on Italy? by the New York Times Book Review, and in The Sack of Rome he sets out to answer the question: What happens when vast wealth, a virtual media monopoly, and acute shamelessness combine in one man? Many are the crimes of Silvio Berlusconi, Stille argues, and, with deft analysis, he weaves them into a single mesmerizing chronicle?an epic saga of rank criminality, cronyism, and self-dealing at the highest levels of power.

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Politics, Biography

402 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 22, 2006

Reviews

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stille has put together a thought provoking book. Presaged by Orwell, the SB story defines the age we are living in, and those of us who care about democracy need to understand it.

To achieve his vast wealth, SB and his associates broke and skirted many laws. By selling himself through his monopolistic media empire (and the image of his new party named for his popular soccer team) in three months time, he achieved prosecutorial immunity by taking over the reins of government.

As Prime Minister, with most of Parliament on his personal payroll, SB effected the release all imprisoned for corruption. Ousted as PM, still powerful, SB got a law enabling witness to opt out of testifying. Back again as PM, a law whereby those accused can chose their prosecutors! This is no where near the tip of the iceberg!

Stille gives us a step by step of this rise and how he used the power he got to avoid prosecution for ever growing lists of crimes. He used the media to polarize the country and create crises. He cast his enemies as scum who hated him for his virtue & would destroy the country if given any power. By controlling the media he was able to discredit everyone who criticized the least thing about him. Each different media outlet (which he controlled, although he made them seem independent) echoed his point of view and made his distortions the conventional wisdom. Books, journals, and higher brow newpapers (permanance and nuance) being the province of the small group who knew about and could document his abuses of power, he discredited it as elitist. The many who spent 3-5 hours a day watching and glimpsing TV integrated the reality he fed them and believed his stories to be facts. He saw to it that the few journalists who might divulge his crimes would never work again. Pay offs of money, influence and/or career opportunities worked too and controlling the judiciary took care of everything else. Stille documents all these with specifics.

I'd like to know more about the brave Italian prosecutors who press on despite the dangers of the Mafia and Berlusconi.

While there is analysis throughout, Stille ties the story up with comparisons to the highly concentrated media developing in the US and its desire for federal approvals for further concentration. One parallel he doesn't bring out here is that of the two comedians who break the chorus praise for SB. Hopefully, the 100+ cable channels, a vibrant internet, the size and nature of our country (the US), and the economics of our entertainment exports will protect us in the US from this sort of monarchy.

This is an excellent book. It's a slow read for those not familiar with Italian politics, but very worthwhile.

The metaphor is so important that I hope that some cable channel can give us a Dallas or West Wing style series based in it. Hear me HBO! This is as big as the Sopranos! Call it "Rome II".

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silvio Berlusconi has been the subject of alternating currents of global fascination and derision for decades. Yet outside of Italy, investigations of the man have been rare. Alexander Stille corrects this oversight to reveal aspects of the former Italian prime minister long overshadowed by his gaudier escapades.

Stille thankfully begins the story with Berlusconi's post-collegiate years as a real estate developer in Milan. This spares the reader two of the most odious features of recent political biography: foggy recollections of grade school classmates and speculation about formative influences on personality. Documented facts and on-the-record quotes form the core of this book, which is not only a prerequisite for solid journalism, but Berlusconi's life in particular. Silvio has been self-mythologizing since at least the 1970s, downplaying the role of family connections in his initial business successes while exaggerating the most minor of his skills, such as singing.

One thing made clear is that Berlusconi was connected to organized crime in the 1970s and 1980s, but Stille, a credible and fair journalist, explains how that is normative for a businessman of Berlusconi's background and generation. More importantly, Stille explains how a mob connection or two is hardly the greatest of Berlusconi's flaws. If Berlusconi is to be criticized for anything, it is not his sketchy friends or comical acts of infidelity, but his crass hijacking of his country's political system.

American readers annoyed by the predictable and trashy debates of our election seasons will slap their heads and gasp at Silvio's flagrant use of his own media empire to promote his upstart political party and later his candidacy for prime minister. Imagine if Jack Welch formed a third party in 1996; promoted it nightly on NBC News for months; announced his candidacy for president on a daytime soap; and then ordered Pat Sajak to shill for the campaign during nightly broadcasts of Wheel of Fortune. Berlusconi did just about the same thing.

American readers quick to criticize this appalling chapter of Western democracy should think twice -- if you replace every instance of the word "Mafioso" in this book with "lobbyist," Berlusconi will seem no different from any of his presidential counterparts of the last 30 years.

[Stephen Morrissey · Rating 4 out of 5]

If there is a book that predicted the rise of Trump, Brexit and populist movements in the West, Stille's "The Sack of Rome" is it. Eerily reminiscent of the post-truth, media-savvy, non-ideological, and corrupt politics of Donald Trump & company, Stille's account of Berlusconi's rise and fall in Italy paints a despairing portrait of the consequences of putting power into the hands of megalomaniacal media lords and businessmen.

On its own merits, Stille's account is an excellent appraisal of Italian politics in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as an insightful biography of Berlusconi's rise to financial, media, and political prominence. The book dives deep into the media controversies, mafia connections, and political chicanery of Silvio Berlusconi and his many below-board decisions that landed him in control of a vast media and Italian business empire. Stille is at his best in describing how utterly tilted the media landscape was in Berlusconi's favor during his first dalliances in politics, and how rules designed to level the playing field were utilized to make Berlusconi the inevitable center of fawning attention and praise (as well as sharp criticisms directed towards his opponents).

Secondly, Stille's book is a prophecy for American politics. The penultiumate chapter is dedicated to a comparison of Italian politics under Berlusconi and American politics under George W. Bush. The comparisons only sharpen when reading this after the 2016 election. Italians turned to Berlusconi (perhaps rightly on a first impression) as a breath of fresh air in a stale and corrupt political environment; however, those voters did not recognize that Berlusconi's free-market mantra meant little more than enriching friends, improving his own business prospects, and bullying the Italian state into submission to the Berlusconi empire.

One hopes that Americans may learn from Italy's Berlusconi era in 2020.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very timely book, given this week's Italian election results for various referendums, and a prominent article in the Economist: "The man who screwed an entire country." The book is a well-researched and meticulously detailed indictment. It really deserves four stars, but I have to admit some boredom and consequent skimming occured.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and very in-depth view into the rise of Berlusconi, especially interesting having learned more about Italian politics during Fascism in other books I've recently read.

[Ron Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good book, worth the read.

In today's world, political achievement often seems built on immense riches and blatant self-promotion, as demonstrated by figures like Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Silvio Berlusconi. They all seem to have been manufactured in the same factory.

Berlusconi was (he died happy and rich at age 86 in 2023) a plutocrat and robber baron, a gross misogynist and sex-addict, a mouther of religious pieties, a germophobe, and a general buffoon who believed that what matters is what you can convince people of, not political performance or anything as wimpy and unimaginative as the truth. He believed that politics means lining your pockets and those of your supporters while keeping yourself out of jail. He believed opponents should be attacked swiftly and harshly, then taken to court. By the time the nonsense charges were thrown out he’d be on to his next enemy. Sounds familiar, no?

Also check out the semi-psychedelic 2018 movie Loro (“Them”) about Berlusconi and his tribe: https://tinyurl.com/mu8nte4n.

[Devin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Italy is its own thing but read like a template that Trump followed almost every step of over here. Even so, the scale of Berlusconi's control of broadcast media and cooperation/collaboration with the Mafia was pretty shocking to read about. Hard not to feel exhausted by the interminability of the fight against these far-right forces and the frustrated by the inadequacy of the center-left leading it. It sucks that people rationally start to expect less from government as a result of being governed by these losers, as corruption and bigotry becomes normalized and tolerated.

Important to remember that things can always get worse, looking at the polls for the snap election in September showing that a party that can fairly be described as neo-fascist, well to the right of Forza Italia, favored to lead the next government.

[mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a podcast I heard this author pointing out similarities between Silvio Berlusconi's rise to power and that of our own Donald Trump. Stille gives a detailed account of Berlusconi's rise and reign, which saved Berlusconi's media empire from business and legislative threats, but which was a political and financial disaster for almost everyone else in Italy. He identifies Berlusconi's formula: "money + media + celebrity = political power" and cautions that this formula has and could succeed again elsewhere in the world. Stille's book, published in 2006, does not contain even a single mention of Trump, but it is now impossible to read his book without Trump's presence intruding into the narrative - this is his specialty, isn't it? ugly and relentless intrusion into our daily lives.

[Helen Tauscher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enlightening! Great read about the political environment in Italy. Very relevant to today's political climate. Details about leadership in business are stated in the book and these allow the reader an opportunity to evaluate pros and cons of business leaders being in politics.

[Jason S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at rise of Berlusconi and how he use media to come to power. Many parallels to Trump.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read this book I was very surprised to find many part of Berlusconi's career impressive and admirable. He was the first one in Italy, and I'm fairly sure the first in all of Europe, to break the government monopoly on TV programming. And, that monopoly was ridiculous. Since government controlled the TV airwaves, they also controlled the content, and strongly resisted capitalist development by making restrictive laws on what could not be advertised. For example, before Berlusconi, it was illegal to advertise deoderant on TV. Illegal by law of Parliament. Why? Because Italians don't stink. (No no, I'm not the one saying that, and neither is Stille - that was the reasoning of the Italian Parliament. p.52.) Ads for pet food? Illegal: Immoral in a world where children are starving, says Parliament. Ads for adult diapers? Illegal: Parliament doesn't want Italians thinking about Italians who piss their pants. These ridiculous, moralistic, anti-capitalist practices are crushed by the simple presence of competition, which Berlusconi provided for the first time ever.

Ok, great, so I potentially admire him as a businessman. But as a politician he is a disaster, largely because of the company he keeps. In the early '90s, Italian magistrates launched a far-reaching investigation into political corruption the became known as Tangentopoli. This touched on the lives and livelihoods of many of Berluscon's allies. However, a sitting Parliament member cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office (likely Berlusconi's original motivation for running for office). In 1992, two thirds of Parliament members of his party are under indictment for criminal activity starting at bribery and corruption and going up to hard core crimes. Two thirds!!! That changes the nature of normal - he made it normal for Italian parliament members to be criminal mafiosi hiding behind their badge of Parliament.

In 1989 a man named DeBenedetti arranged to buy the Mondadori publishing and media empire. It was arranged and finalized by legal contract, with money and properties to actually change hands at the end of the year. Then Berlusconi comes along and decides that HE wants to buy Mondadori, and makes his own contract to that effect. DeBenedetti challenges his claim to purchase in court. DeBenedetti wins. Berlusconi is allowed 3 appeals. He loses the first two, but then he wins the 3rd. Not only do the judges award him all of the Mondadori empire, overruling DeBenedetti's true claim, but they also award to Berlusconi L'Espresso-Repubblica group of newspapers and magazines - possessions that belong entirely to DeBenedetti and that have NOTHING to do with the question that the court had been handling!! That's right, the judges decided to rob DeBenedetti and Robin Hood the goods over to Berlusconi (Italy's richest man). The obviousness of the corruption in this case was so bad and so obvious that a Senator For Life (of which Italy has only a handful) named Andreotti, who was a friend and ally of Berlusconi, was forced to go talk some sense in to him. And get this: Andreotti actually convinces Berlusconi to GIVE BACK L'Espresso group!! He just gives it back!! Like a kid nonchalantly putting back some prized baseball cards he'd been caught stealing from some other kid!!!!

How is this possible?? How can Berlusconi accomplish SUCH corrupt ends?? Well, we all later found out that Berlusconi's lawyer, Previti, kept a team of judges on Berlusconi's payroll. What does it mean for you if you are on Berlusconi's payroll. It means you do whatever you want: "The final ruling in the Mondadori case appears to have actually been written by Berlusconi's own legal team." !!!!!!!!!

The book was so fascinating that I ended up taking 7 pages of notes from what was supposed to be a quick read! I highly recommend it to everybody, and ESPECIALLY Forza Italia sympathizers. That party without him would have potential. With him it is a cancer in an Uncle Sam disguise.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider this the companion piece to Stille's 'Excellent Cadavers'. The entire political order was in tatters with the massive corruption trials of the early 1990s. Berlusconi said that he had to get into politics to stay out of jail! He played the outsider, but was intricately connected to Bettino Craxi, the central figure in the scandals. He used his near-total control of TV and large sectors of print media to either blackout damaging stories or shrilly shout down his accusers with the lame, but effective complaint of communist persecution.

The majority of his voters had a seventh grade education. He did poorly with the more educated. He spent enormous amounts on self-promotion and effectively brainwashed a lot of people with his self-made outsider lies.

Prosecutors had been investigating the origins of his empire and there was a lot of serious suspicion that the Mafia had used his businesses to launder money. There is a lot of detail about this and his closest adviser and campaign director, Marcello Dell'Utri is now in jail for Mafia corruption. He is in my opinion undoubtedly an 'ambassador' of the Mafia to the business/political class. Other close friends and advisers are equally sinister and slimy.

The historical compromise between the Communists and Christian Democrats created Italy's amazing social programs, so even with corruption, the people were well-cared for. Berlusconi stepped into the void created by the corruption scandals and made sure he wasn't perceived to be a member of the old order (which he was). He created a new party with a lot of soccer metaphors about goals and teamwork and winning and fantasies of riches for all. It was just a marketing campaign--nothing else. His only motives were to cut business taxes and acquire more security for his own businesses that were on shaky ground and most of all, to attack the prosecutors who were investigating him. Mancuso, one of his justice ministers, was forced out by parliament because he was doing little else than attempting to dissolve the Palermo anti-Mafia team. Now isn't that just a little bit suspicious?

Italy was a US cold war colony and the country, along with Germany, where they had the strongest influence and presence. Berlusconi fit the bill for a US-approved leader. He would do everything in his power to thwart any progressive measures,would support all US foreign policy decisions (wars,sanctions etc.) was in favor of privatization and opening the country to American businesses, e.g. McDonalds in the center of old Rome: a sad sight indeed, to see people eating that stuff in a country of amazing food. Though difficult to prove, I'm sure that he had the support of the US, who could make it very difficult for anyone who didn't.

Stille does write about the dangers Berlusconi's methods pose to the idea of democracy. In the US, candidates are purchased by rich contributors and vetted for their compliance to military/financial goals for total domination so I see no difference between Berlusconi and any major US candidate. What's the difference if the candidate owns the media or if his 'sponsors' do? Also, I don't think the phenomenon of media-sponsored politics started with Berlusconi. To only discuss events in one country without considering the influence of the world powers is simply not providing an explanation as to why these events, well-documented as they may be, happened and are happening.

Berlusconi repeatedly made a fool of himself with his incessant bragging and his sleazy comments about women. Bunga-Bunga Berlusconi, emperor of the ignorant and eternal fugitive from justice.

[Ann]

This is a fascinating and appalling account of the career of the current Italian PM. His early business ventures with their misty financial sponsors are detailed. By the early 1990s when scandal hit Italian politics in a big way and a whole new political system was being established based on the principle of winner-take-all rather than proportional representation. With the center right either hopelessly splintered or under indictment it appeared that the Communists were likely to win the next national elections. Berlusconi and his advisors reorganized his huge Finninvest holdings (3 private TV stations, a newspaper, department stores, real estate offices, ad agencies, insurance salesmen and stockbrokers into a political party Forza Italia.
Throughout, Berlusconi's salesmanlike style is positively breathtaking. He says whatever fits the occasion, regardless of the facts.

[Michael Frudakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book! Stille expertly narrates Silvio Berlusconi's entertaining rise to wealth and power while building Fininvest and his subsequent transition/takeover of Italian politics only three months after founding his own party, Forza Italia.

Stille flavors this chronicle with an excellent commentary depicting both the brilliance and depravity of Berlusconi's maneuvers. In fact, I often laughed to myself while reading about Silvio's adventures with TV actresses, politicians, and clever sidesteps (often blatant disregards) of government regulations.

More than anything, this book conveys that Silvio is quite a character. The widespread notion of "Il Cavaliere" as a comic figure does little justice to the (figurative and literal) cojones that Silvio Berlusconi must possess given his recent and past exploits at the center of power in Italy.

[CJ]

I read this because Ezra Klein recommended it on his podcast as a book that he found useful for understanding the Trump presidency. Trump has been compared to a lot of strongmen, but as this book illustrates, he has much more in common with a figure like Berlusconi than Mussolini. Stille follows Berlusconi through his first two terms as prime minister in Italy, detailing how he leveraged his massive media influence to rise to power and control the narrative once in office, and how he used his political power as prime minister to further his own business interests, bringing Italy to new lows of corruption. Stille's thesis, that media plus money plus celebrity equals power, shows how men like Berlusconi and Trump can succeed.

[Louis W · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd been wanting, in a peripheral sort of way, to read this one for a few years. But late on election night I knew I had to read it and soon. Italy and the U.S. are two different countries, but Burlusconi and Trump are basically the same person. I'm not sure whether this book made me feel any more optimistic about the next four years. But it has helped me distinguish up from down again which, at this point, is something.

[Solor · Rating 4 out of 5]

To my knowledge, Stille has been one of the first International observer to understand Silvio Berlusconi threat to Italy and Democracy in general. Since then, he has devoted himself to bring to light all the murkiness and wrongdoings that a modern Citizen Kane has accumulated in his book.
It is fundamental reading to comprehend how Italy was mesmerised by this burlesque randy charlatan

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

written like a long form article, the subject is interesting and the circumstances so unbelievable it is forgivable when at times it feels a little slow. Knowing corruption on an intimate level is worth it.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so well-written and so fucked up. My heart is heavy with the grotesque destruction of an extraordinary place by this repulsive man.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed account of how Silvio Berlusconi acquired his financial power and how he used this financial and media power to gain political power.