Books

Strongmen - Ruth Ben-Ghiat

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Strongmen: Mussolini To The Present

Ours is the age of the strongman, of heads of state who damage or destroy democracy and use masculinity as a tool of political legitimacy. Such rulers now govern Russia, Turkey, Brazil, the United States, and other geopolitically important nations. They promise law and order rule and then legitimize lawless behavior by financial, sexual, and other predators.

Covering a century of tyranny in Africa, Europe, and the Americas, this book examines how authoritarians use propaganda, virility, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all of these practices show that, far from being an efficient and stable model of governance, authoritarian rule is marked by chaos and destruction.

The fruit of decades of research, Strongmen gives readers insight into how such rulers think, who and what they depend on, and how they can be opposed.

Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema Book Cover

ITALIAN FASCISM’S EMPIRE CINEMA

“Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema is the most subtle and detailed examination we have of a crucial element of the cultural practice of ‘totalitarian’ dictatorship, Italian-style.”

―Times Higher Education Supplement

FASCIST MODERNITIES: ITALY, 1922-1945

“More than a history of Fascist culture, a richly documented and thorough chronicle of the relationship between the regime and culture.”

– William Weaver, New York Review of Books

Italian Colonialism Cover

ITALIAN COLONIALISM

“Italian Colonialism offers a fascinating introduction to a subject that has for too long been ignored. ….Through highly readable chapters by many of the major scholars in the field, the book puts both Italian history and the history of European colonialism in a new light.”

– David Kertzer, Paul Dupee Professor of Social Sciences, Brown University

ITALIAN MOBILITIES

“This is a great read for anyone who studies Italian emigration, colonialism or immigration, as it allows the reader to see quite clearly how these three topics are deeply interconnected.”
 
– Avy Valladares, Berkeley City College, Altreitalie

Gli imperi cover

GLI IMPERI: DALL’ANTICHITÀ ALL’ETÀ CONTEMPORANEA

This volume brings together scholarship on empires from a wide variety of temporal and geographical contexts, from ancient Rome and China, through the French and Russian empires, to contemporary America.

La Cultura Fascista

LA CULTURA FASCISTA

Mulino: 2000, 2004