Christopher Hibbert, "Benito Mussolini" (1962, rev. 1972)

The sub-title for this classic is "The Rise and Fall of Il Duce."

Hibbert's book appears to be one of those great British cheap paperback reprints about facets of the Second World War that seem to have been produced in great scads during the 1970s.

I don't know nearly enough about Mussolini, other than that he is presented as the somewhat buffoonish Italian parallel to Hitler. Of course, he came to power before Hitler, and was really the leading Fascist politician (hence the name for the ideology that derives from an classic Roman reference) before Hitler began to pursue his search for German lebensraum.

I was somewhat surprised to learn of his early socialist ideological roots, ideas that to some degree stayed with him even to his death. Much like Hitler, however, the allure of power spoke loudly to Mussolini, leading him to increasingly radical solutions where political success to priority over other values. Upon rising to power, Mussolini's desire for grandeur and power led him into a series of ill-advised foreign military adventures: against Egypt, Albania, France, and Greece. The unequivocal disasters that these invasions were compelled Mussolini to repeatedly seek out the assistance of Nazi Germany, diminishing Mussolini's capacity to debate, question, or redirect Hitler's political visions for Europe and the Mediterranean.

Hibbert's book, particularly in its last third, looks at Mussolini from a far more personal perspective than political. This makes sense given that he fell from grace - was rescued by the Nazis and returned to power as the head of the puppet Salo Italian government - and then captured again, and killed with his mistress.