"[A] well-written and balanced account of one of the more enigmatic figures of the twentieth
century."Booklist

Historian Jasper Ridley brings us this comprehensive biography of the man who invented fascismBenito
Mussolini, widely regarded as one of the arch villains of the twentieth century. A complex and contradictory
figure, Mussolini won the fascination of many statesmen and writersand their wives. From his early years
raised in the traditions of revolutionary Italian Socialism, to his violent execution by Communist partisans at
the end of World War II, we watch Mussolini's power ambitions erode his political ideals, as he evolves from
brilliant orator and journalist to empire-building dictator enforcing his authority by death squads. A man initially
praised and admired by such Western luminaries as Winston Churchill, or underestimated as a posturing
buffoon, he eventually showed his true colors as a racist and persecutor of the Jews. He sought equal stature
with Hitler, but his alliance with him would prove disastrous. Ridley's account of this unforgettable twentieth-century
figure is even-handed and indispensable.

Jasper Ridley has written many successful biographies of forceful and vivid characters in the sixteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them Lord Palmerston, Napoleon III and Eugénie, Henry VIII, and Garibaldi. His books have been acclaimed in the United States, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic and Latin America. His most recently published book is a biography of Marshal Tito.

Nadia May has been nominated as an AudioFile Golden Voice five years running and is a winner of thirteen AudioFile Earphones Awards. She is the co-founder of TheatreFirst, a theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently lives.