Mussolinis Daughter, Caroline Moorehead
Mussolinis Daughter, Caroline Moorehead
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Mussolini's Daughter
The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe

Author: Caroline Moorehead

Narrator: Kathleen Gati

Unabridged: 16 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 11/15/2022

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A thrilling biography of Edda Mussolini—Benito Mussolini’s favorite daughter, one of the most influential women in 1930s Europe—and a heart-stopping account of the unraveling of the Fascist dream in Italy, from award-winning historian and author of the acclaimed Resistance Quartet, Caroline Moorehead “Reads like a page-turning thriller.”—BookPageEdda Mussolini was the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s oldest and favorite child. At 19, she was married to Count Galleazzo Ciano, Il Duce’s Minister for Foreign Affairs during the 1930s, the most turbulent decade in Italy’s fascist history. In the years preceding World War II, Edda ruled over Italy’s aristocratic families and the cultured and middle classes while selling Fascism on the international stage. How a young woman wielded such control is the heart of Moorehead’s fascinating history. The issues that emerge reveal not only a great deal about the power of fascism, but also the ease with which dictatorship so easily took hold in a country weakened by war and a continent mired in chaos and desperate for peace.Drawing on a wealth of archival material, some newly released, along with memoirs and personal papers, Mussolini’s Daughter paints a portrait of a woman in her twenties whose sheer force of character and ruthless narcissism helped impose a brutal and vulgar movement on a pliable and complicit society. Yet as Moorehead shows, not even Edda’s colossal willpower, her scheming, nor her father’s avowed love could save her husband from Mussolini’s brutal vengeance.As she did in her Resistance Quartet, Moorehead delves deep into the past, exploring what fascism felt like to those living under it, how it blossomed and grew, and how fascists and aristocrats joined forces to pursue ten years of extravagance, amorality, and excessive luxury—greed, excess, and ambition that set the world on fire. The result is a powerful portrait of a young woman who played a key role in one of the most terrifying and violent periods in human history.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About Caroline Moorehead

Caroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of the Resistance Quartet, which includes A Bold and Dangerous Family, Village of Secrets, and A Train in Winter, as well as Human Cargo, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. An acclaimed biographer, she has written for the New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The Independent. She lives in London and Italy.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Daniel on January 06, 2023

There is a great deal about Mussolini's daughter to be found here, but it's just as much about the rise of fascism & Mussolini himself. I'm not sure the sub-title of "the most dangerous woman in Europe" really applies to this book...it's more a lament to how easily Italy fell to fascism and then int......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on November 28, 2022

As usual with Caroline Moorehead, this book is meticulously researched and very readable. The only small quibble I have about it is that it doesn’t fully do what it says on the tin. It’s much more of a general history of Mussolini himself and his period of fascist government in Italy. Edda was certa......more

Goodreads review by KOMET on August 10, 2023

I was curious to read MUSSOLINI'S DAUGHTER: The Most Dangerous Woman in Europe" once I learned it had been published. Its author, Caroline Moorehead, I came to respect from having read several years ago her book, A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occup......more

Goodreads review by Riccardo on November 29, 2022

Great as a history book narrative but not sure there’s enough on her to warrant a whole book. Seems like the author just padded her story with all the things we already knew about her dad to make the book long enough. Doesn’t make it a bad book, just not many revelations.......more

Goodreads review by Eric on March 29, 2023

Wait, whom is this about?......more