Mussolini and Italian Fascism

Fascism was one of the defining experiences of the European 20th Century. Within it many of the economic, political, social and cultural contradictions that had been brewing in the unprecedented transformation that European society underwent in the 19th and early 20th century came to a head. Mussolini, the man who most fashioned Italian Fascism, dramatically expressed the unease and the hopes of his age. To what extent can we compare Mussolini's Italy to Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia? What legacy has the experience of Fascism left behind in Italy and in Europe? These and many more important questions are explored in Finaldi's introduction to one of the most important movements of the European 20th Century.

Giuseppe Finaldi is a lecturer in History at the University of Western Australia. He has worked extensively on Italian social and cultural history in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Part One: background. 1. Perspectives on modern Italian history. 2. Perspectives on the study of Fascism. Part Two: Mussolini and Italian Fascism. 3. The Origins of Italian Fascism 1870-1917. 4. Fascism as movement 1917-1921. 5. The road to dictatorship 1921-1926. 6. The Fascist Regime 1926-1936. 7. Mussolini and Hitler 1936-1938. 8. The Second World War and the end of fascism, 1938-45. Part Three: Conclusion. 9. The place of Italian fascism in European history. Part Four: Documents. Further reading. References. Index.