The Fall of Mussolini: Italy, the Italians, and the Second World War - Hardcover

Morgan, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019280247X ISBN 13: 9780192802477

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2007

Synopsis

In this powerful history, Philip Morgan tells the dramatic story of Mussolini's fall from power in July 1943, illuminating both the causes and the consequences of this momentous event.
Morgan recounts how King Emanuel first ousted Mussolini and how Germany then succeeded in putting him back in place, this time as a puppet of the Nazis. The resulting chaos included fighting by anti-fascist rebel groups, retributions on all sides, and mini civil wars throughout the country. When Germany finally surrendered, Italy was in complete disarray. The book shines light on how common people responded to and coped with the extraordinary pressures of wartime living and with the invasion, occupation, and division of their country by warring foreign powers. Morgan's descriptions of little known events from Italy's war, as well as vivid eye-witness reports from people who hid Jews, fought in the resistance, and killed collaborators, clearly show how much the country suffered during this time. And it proves how crucial the experience of this period was in shaping Italy's post-war sense of nationhood and its transition to democracy.
The book also debunks the myths that arose after the war, which depicted the nation as almost entirely anti-Fascist, with the heroes of the resistance movement fighting to rid their country first of Mussolini, then of their German occupiers. In truth, the situation surrounding Mussolini's removal from power, return to power, and eventual execution was far more complicated. This book presents an accurate history of Italy during the war years, rather than what Italians imagine or want their actions to have been.


"A clear and sensitive account of a forgotten conflict. Takes readers well past the jokes and romance which demean most other interpretations of Fascist Italy's war." --Richard Bosworth, author of Mussolini

About this title

About the Author

Philip Morgan is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary European History at the University of Hull. His previous publications include Italian Fascism, 1919-1945 and Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945.

Reviews

British historian Morgan's account of Italian society during World War II hinges on his perception that Italy has a split memory about its participation: amnesia about the years 1940-43, when it was an aggressor, and a more positive recollection of the years 1943-45, when it was a Nazi-occupied theater of war. Noting that there are monuments to victims of the latter period, and rarely to those of the former, Morgan ponders the gusts of politics and war that buffeted ordinary Italians. Those who kept their heads down when Mussolini took Italy to war could no longer temporize their allegiance after he fell from power in July 1943. This became a pressing, potentially lethal matter when Germany invaded in September 1943 and restored Mussolini to power. The recruitment demands of his regime, activities of partisans, and forced labor drafts by the Germans presented ordinary people with impossible situations. Sympathetic to on-the-ground dilemmas, Morgan rescues the traumatic period from the tendency to reduce the pressures of the time to a resister/collaborator dichotomy. For large WWII collections. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019280247X
• ISBN 13: 9780192802477
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 284