Il Duce's Other Woman

From Publishers Weekly A person of exceptional erudition and culture, Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961) was the Italian dictator's lover, political adviser and intellectual mentor, the authors show in their enlightening study. They reveal how, in the period following the Great War, the two combined their socialist ideals and fierce nationalism to forge a revolutionary movement--Fascism--and how Mussolini in the end "could not tolerate public knowledge that a woman and a Jew had done as much as she had to build the Fascist regime." Her forced departure from Italy in 1938 (the year Il Duce declared his anti-Semitic policies) proved to be Sarfatti's salvation. In their excellent biography of this difficult, dynamic, memorable woman, Cannistraro and Sullivan present aspects of her lover's career not previously explored in detail: Mussolini's experiences as a solider in WW I, his editorship of the socialist paper Avanti! and his active interest in creating a favorable international image of Fascist Italy. Cannistraro is head of the history and politics department at Drexel University in Pennsylvania; Sullivan is a senior fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Photos. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal The wealthy Jewish Margherita Sarfatti was one of Mussolini's numerous paramours. Unlike his other mistresses, she was also a brilliant woman, influential as an art critic, patron, and collector. She met Mussolini in 1911 and played a significant role in the rise of fascism, only to be discarded as her lover turned to anti-Semitism. After World War II she continued to be an influential force in Italian art. Behind this book's flippant title is a carefully researched, highly detailed, and interesting, though overly long, history of fascist Italy. Its authors, both with academic affiliations, have avoided the pitfalls of academese to produce an account that will be enjoyable to the general reader. Given Mussolini's importance in world history, there is relatively little about him in English. Libraries serving readers interested in world history, or those that hold Denis Mack Smith's classic Mussolini (Knopf, 1982), should purchase. Photos and index not seen.