Claudio G. Segre
Italo Balbo
A Fascist Life
$26.95, £15.95 paperback
978-0-520-07199-5
Available Now
482 pages,
August 1990, Available worldwide
Categories: History; European History; Autobiographies & Biographies; Politics
August 1990, Available worldwide
Categories: History; European History; Autobiographies & Biographies; Politics
"Segré's close and balanced look reveals the strengths and weaknesses of Balbo's personality . . . and gives enough information for us to ponder the contradictions and shortcomings of this Fascist life."—Roland Sarti, American Historical Review
"Sociologists and political scientists interested in the ways that ideology functions will find Segré's book useful for the ways it dramatizes the role and nature of ideology under fascism. Scholars of Italian and European history should find this study useful for its detailed, well-documented, and readable study of the rise and fall of fascism as portrayed through the life of one of its architects."—Marcia Landy, Social Science Quarterly
"This is a fascinating political biography, splendidly written and told with precisely the appropriate balance of sympathy and skepticism."—Martin Blinkhorn, History Today
"Segré's accurate and disquieting portrait increases our understanding of the gap between the often glamorous image of Fascism and its limited achievements."—Adrian Lyttelton, Times Literary Supplement
"Sociologists and political scientists interested in the ways that ideology functions will find Segré's book useful for the ways it dramatizes the role and nature of ideology under fascism. Scholars of Italian and European history should find this study useful for its detailed, well-documented, and readable study of the rise and fall of fascism as portrayed through the life of one of its architects."—Marcia Landy, Social Science Quarterly
"This is a fascinating political biography, splendidly written and told with precisely the appropriate balance of sympathy and skepticism."—Martin Blinkhorn, History Today
"Segré's accurate and disquieting portrait increases our understanding of the gap between the often glamorous image of Fascism and its limited achievements."—Adrian Lyttelton, Times Literary Supplement
Pioneering aviator, blackshirt leader, colonial governor, confidante and heir-apparent to Benito Mussolini, the dashing and charismatic Italo Balbo exemplified the ideals of Fascist Italy during the 1920s and 30s. He earned national notoriety after World War I as a ruthless squadrista whose blackshirt forces crushed socialist and trade union organizations. As Minister of Aviation from 1926 to 1933, he led two internationally heralded mass trans-Atlantic flights. When his aerial armada reached the U. S., Chicago honored him with a Balbo Avenue, New York staged a ticker-tape parade, and President Roosevelt invited him to lunch. As colonial governor from 1933 to 1940, Balbo transformed Libya from backward colony to model Italian province. To many, Italo Balbo seemed to embody a noble vision of Fascism and the New Italy.
Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History, sponsored by the American Historical Association, American Catholic Historical Association, and the Society for Italian Historical Studies