Description: This new study re-examines the controversial debate on Fascist Italy's road to international conflict that has raged for six decades. The author's privileged access to until now unseen archival materials allows him to assess the ideological, geopolitical, domestic and strategic considerations that shaped Mussolini's alliance with Hitler, and his subsequent decision to wage war against Great Britain and France in June 1940.
Review Quotes: "This is an excellent study of a little-known but important aspect of the Second World War. It has the great merit of being easy to read at the same time as using much unpublished material from the Italian State Archives."--Denis Mack Smith, Emeritus Fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and Emeritus Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge