{"title":"Richard J B Bosworth","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"mussolini-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780340809884","title":"Mussolini","description":"Mussolini loved trees so much that he quizzed his bureaucracy about storm damage to the environment.  He kept the works of Socrates and Plato on his desk.  He regularly wrote to his daughter, if only to report family pleasure at victories by the national football team. Yet nearly a million people went early to their graves as the result of his dictatorship. Why and how did Mussolini come to power?  Why is he often regarded as a figure of fun, while his contemporaries, Hitler and Stalin, are seen as totalitarian tyrants? Did he really revolutionise Italy? With extraordinary skill and vividness, Richard Bosworth's biography paints a picture of brutality and failure, yet combined with an understanding of Mussolini the man. The remarkable story  of the ambitious intellectual from the provinces who built a fascist empire but ended in disgrace, shot ignominiously by his own people, never fails to grip. He seems to me to have come closer to a true understanding of Mussolini than any previous English-language biographer. His book is excellent -- persuasive and highly intelligent. It is lucid, elegant and a pleasure to read.' Allan Massie, The Daily Telegraph 'It is the best biography in English to date.' The Spectator 'highly readable' BBC History Magazine 'a fresh, intelligent and judicious re-examination of Mussolini and the Fascist period.' The New York Times Sunday Book Review About the author: Richard Bosworth is one of the world's leading authorities on modern Italian history. He has been a Visiting Fellow at a number of institutions, including the Italian Academy at Columbia University, Clare Hall (Cambridge), Balliol (Oxford), and the Humanities Research Centre (ANU, Canberra). About the author: Richard Bosworth is one of the world's leading authorities on modern Italian history. He has been a Visiting Fellow at a number of institutions, including the Italian Academy at Columbia University, Clare Hall (Cambridge), Balliol (Oxford), and the Humanities Research Centre (ANU, Canberra).","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49534859968785,"sku":"GOR001342205","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49891905143057,"sku":"GOR008659649","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50259023790353,"sku":"GOR002975514","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50818102067473,"sku":"GOR003308446","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52093106454801,"sku":"CIN0340809884VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52509286859025,"sku":"CIN0340809884G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0340809884.jpg?v=1751197043"},{"product_id":"mussolini-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780340981733","title":"Mussolini","description":"In 1945, disguised in German greatcoat and helmet, Mussolini attempted to escape from the advancing Allied armies. Unfortunately for him, the convoy of which he was part was stopped by partisans and his features, made so familiar by Fascist propaganda, gave him away. Within 24 hours he was executed by his captors, joining those he sent early to their graves as an outcome of his tyranny, at least one million people. He was one of the tyrant-killers who so scarred interwar Europe, but we cannot properly understand him or his regime by any simple equation with Hitler or Stalin. Like them, his life began modestly in the provinces; unlike them, he maintained a traditonal male family life, including both wife and mistresses, and sought in his way to be an intellectual. He was cruel (though not the cruellest); his racism existed, but never without the consistency and vigor that would have made him a good recruit for the SS. He sought an empire; but, in the most part, his was of the old-fashioned, costly, nineteenth century variety, not a racial or ideological imperium. And, self-evidently Italian society was not German or Russian: the particular patterns of that society shaped his dictatorship. Bosworth's Mussolini allows us to come closer than ever before to an appreciation of the life and actions of the man and of the political world and society within which he operated. With extraordinary skill and vividness, drawing on a huge range of sources, this biography paints a picture of brutality and failure, yet one tempered with an understanding of Mussolini as a human being, not so different from many of his contemporaries. 'The definitive study of the Italian dictator.' - Library Journal","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49553568792849,"sku":"GOR007190733","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49728682852625,"sku":"NGR9780340981733","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50468763599121,"sku":"CIN0340981733VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51400363180305,"sku":"GOR011340754","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52887334027537,"sku":"GOR014653270","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0340981733.jpg?v=1751390778"},{"product_id":"mussolini-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780340731444","title":"Mussolini","description":"In 1945, disguised in German greatcoat and helmet, Mussolini attempted to escape from the advancing Allied armies. Unfortunately for him, the convoy of which he was part was stopped by partisans and his features, made so familiar by Fascist propaganda, gave him away. Within 24 hours he was dead, executed by his captors. He joined those he sent early to their graves as an outcome of his dictatorship - at least a million people, and probably more. He was one of the tyrant-killers who so scarred interwar Europe, but we cannot properly understand him or his regime by any simple equation with Hitler or Stalin. Like Hitler and Stalin, his life began, modestly, in the provinces; unlike them, he maintained a traditional male family life, including both wife and mistresses, and sought in his way to be an intellectual. He was both cruel (but not the cruellist); his racism existed, but never without the consistency and vigour that would have made him a good recruit for the SS. He sought an empire; but, in the most part, his was of the old-fashione, costly, 19th-century variety, not a racial or ideological imperium. Also, self-evidently Italian society was not German or Russian: the particualr patterns of that society shaped his dictatorship. This book allows the reader to come closer to an appreciation of the life and actions of the man and of the political world and society within which he operated. Drawing on a range of sources, this biography paints a picture of brutality and failure, yet one tempered with an understanding of Mussolini as a human being, not so different from many of his contemporaries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49557055504657,"sku":"GOR002559089","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49941924249873,"sku":"CIN0340731443VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50891475190033,"sku":"GOR010400585","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50954618339601,"sku":"CIN0340731443A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51145269051665,"sku":"CIN0340731443G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51440934846737,"sku":"GOR004426623","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0340731443.jpg?v=1750844919"},{"product_id":"italian-dictatorship-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780340677278","title":"The Italian Dictatorship","description":"What was Italian Fascism? Was it the ideology and experience of the trenches brought to political authority? Or did it express the hopes and ideals of an emerging middle class which had done well out of the First World War? To what extent was fascism a boys' ideology? And to what degree did Mussolini lead - and to what extent follow - public opinion? 'The Italian Dictatorship' offers a skilful probing of the central debates in the area and a detailed critique of the ways in which the history of fascism has been given meaning in Italy and in the wider world since 1919. Beginning in the 1990s, with the political, cultural and historiographical crisis of the collapse of the 'First Republic' in Italy, the account then returns to the inter-war period to review fascist, conservative, liberal and Marxist understandings of fascism, examining not only the more traditional sources but also film, 'memory', music and other arenas in which history is crafted.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49561482068241,"sku":"GOR003409954","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50348752568593,"sku":"CIN0340677279G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50408814870801,"sku":"GOR009018666","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51733590409489,"sku":"GOR003529704","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52149435859217,"sku":"NLS9780340677278","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0340677279.jpg?v=1751324884"},{"product_id":"explaining-auschwitz-and-hiroshima-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780415109239","title":"Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima","description":"Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima  explores the way in which the main combatant societies of the Second World War have historicised that experience. Since 1945, debates in Germany about `the past that would not fade away' have been reasonably well-known. But in this book, Richard Bosworth maintains that Germany is not unique. He argues that in Britain, France, Italy, the USSR and Japan, as well as in Germany the traumatic history of the `long Second World War' has remained crucial to the culture and the politics of post-war societies. Each has felt a compelling need to interpret this past event and thus to `explain' `Auschwitz' and `Hiroshima'.  Bosworth explores the bitter controversies that have developed around a particular interpretation of the war, such as disputes over A.J.P. Taylor's,  Origins of the Second World War , Marcel Ophul's film,  The Sorrow and the Pity , Renzo De Felice's biography of Mussolini in the 1970s or in post- Glasnost  debates about the historiographies of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Richard Bosworth's book is a wide-ranging and thoughtful excursion into comparative history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49573969527057,"sku":"GOR005376711","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52126243488017,"sku":"NLS9780415109239","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/041510923X.jpg?v=1751391137"},{"product_id":"mussolini-s-italy-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780713996975","title":"Mussolini's Italy","description":"For Hitler when he came to power Mussolini was the great inspiration and model  fascism, totalitarianism, the charismatic ruler, terror and intimidation were all worked out and perfected in Italy many years before they came to Germany.  And yet, as Richard Bosworth shows in his brilliant new book, there were huge differences between the two regimes, even if ultimately they both went down in flames together. Italy was in many other ways both the pioneer and goad for a European instability that fed ultimately into the Armageddon of 1939-45.  Devastated and embittered by its experience of the First World War, Italy under Mussolini subverted, damaged and besmirched any possible democratic or peaceful future.  And yet for many ordinary Italians (and this book, among other things, is wonderful on the lives and feelings of ordinary people all over the peninsula and islands) the dictatorship never had the stranglehold on their lives and minds that Mussolini and his associates dreamt that they had.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49778552537361,"sku":"GOR002455440","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50818281308433,"sku":"GOR001859058","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0713996978.jpg?v=1750817225"},{"product_id":"explaining-auschwitz-and-hiroshima-book-richard-j-b-bosworth-9780415084505","title":"Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima","description":"Explores the way in which the main combatant societies of the Second World War have historicised that experience. 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