The perfect facist
a story of love, power, and morality in Mussolini's Italy
- ISBN: 9780674271067
- Editorial: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2022
- Lugar de la edición: Cambridge (MSS). Estados Unidos de Norteamérica
- Encuadernación: Rústica
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 528
- Idiomas: Inglés
When Attilio Teruzzi, a decorated military officer and early convert to the Fascist cause, married a rising American opera star, his good fortune seemed settled. The wedding was blessed by Mussolini himself. Yet only three years later, Teruzzi, now commander of the Black Shirts, renounced his wife. Lilliana was Jewish, and fascist Italy would soon introduce its first race laws.
The Perfect Fascist pivots from the intimate story of a tempestuous courtship and inconvenient marriage to the operatic spectacle of Mussolini's rise and fall. It invites us to see in the vain, unscrupulous, fanatically loyal Attilio Teruzzi an exemplar of fascism's New Man. Victoria De Grazia's landmark history shows how the personal was always political in the fascist quest for manhood and power. In his self-serving pieties and intimate betrayals, his violence and opportunism, Teruzzi is a forefather of the illiberal politicians of today.
I. Strive
1. The Soldier
2. The Great War
3. Mutilated Victory
4. Enter the Diva
5. In Mussolini’s Camp
6. On the March
7. Little Man, What Now?
II. Grasp
8. Eros and Thanatos
9. Conquering the Ice Princess
10. A Fascist Wedding
11. Mission to Benghazi
12. Insurgency and Betrayal
13. A Matter of Honor
III. Overreach
14. To Kill a Marriage
15. Commanding the Blackshirts
16. In the Grip of the Inquisition
17. In War, Fullness
18. In Love, Tribulations
19. In Empire, Hollow Glory
IV. Fall
20. The Rout
21. Comeuppance
22. Last Man Standing
23. A Bearded Corpse
24. I Suffer and I Wait
25. Penance
Epilogue
Abbreviations for Notes
