one of the best book I have read.
You do not have to agree or disagree with Mr. Mussolini to enjoy this book. Because you can learn a lot about the will power, the determination, and the courage of the man.

I bought this book on the belief that it would explain to me the very essence of Italian Fascism. Although some important themes and ideas of Mussolini's fascism were discussed, I was disappointed with the lack of detail and expansion. However, I was enthralled by Mussolini's elegant writing style.I found the Duce's view of his own history - however biased - very informing. It gives an intimate view of early 20th century Italy,and in particular, the mood of the Italian people(especially the war veterans). The book's two parts, the first written well before the Second World War and the second during the war, offer a stark comparison of the different outlooks on the world that Mussolini possessed - he was once popular and arrogant, then hated and bitter. The book offers an extraordinary opportunity to take a deep and intimate look inside Mussolini's soul, as well as a thorough - however biased - examination of Fascist Italy. A must for anyone interested in the Duce, Fascism's general themes or World War II in general.

MY RISE AND FALL is actually two books written twenty years apart. MY RISE is an autobiography written in l928 when Mussolini was extremely popular. The introduction by United States ambassador Richard Washurn Child is laudatory, in fact, a hagiography that represents the conservative opinion of that day. To modern readers this view seems a bit grotesque but was widely held by many important people such as Churchill. Mussolini was admired, feared, and universally believed to have been a renaissance genius-exactly the image the dictator carefully crafted through the years of glory. He preened, strutted, intimidated and philosophied on the world stage until he met Hitler and was reduced to a pathetic secondary role as comic 'side-kick'. We now know the tragedy Mussolini inflicted upon his nation, but one can understand his seductive genius by reading him Mussolini, unlike Hitler, could write-and write well. His terse masculine prose ripples across the page reenforcing the image of a hard modern Caesar. Pithy epigrams such as: "throttled by the skinny hand of poverty "(p.86); descriptive images: "ferrets were sent out to smell into my life"(p.95); dramatic scenes like when Zaniboni attempted to kill him: "The bullets pass, Mussolini remains" (p.237);challenging appeals: "If I go forward, follow me; If I recoil, kill me; If I die, revenge me!" (p.238); as well as softer images "the authority of the state was a kitten handled to death". Il Duce was also a great actor who lived his various roles with such zest he believed them himself. Observe Mussolini: fighting a duel with broadswords, skiing bare-chested down the alps, flying an airplane, driving his red sports car with his beautiful mistress Claretta Pettaci, taking his horse over incredibly high hurdles, or playing with a lion. These images combined with the world stateman brokering the Munich Conference-he was the only one there that knew French, German and English-or negotiating the Concordant with the Vatican;along with the family man accompanied by Dona Rachele and his five handsome children made him the idol of his nation. He had restored respect to his nation. Or did he? One can well understand how intellectuals at first flocked to his banner, Nobel prize winners such as Luigi Pirandello, Guglielmo Marconi, and Enrico Fermi were members of his Academy; Giovanni Gentile, his minister of education; Conductor Arturo Toscanni a Fascist candidate; Curzio Malaparte a war correspondent; and even philosopher Bennedetto Croce, a bitter opponent, supported the Ethiopian War. True, many later deserted, Toscanni and Fermi to the United States, but many remained. THE FALL OF MUSSOLINI reveals the true man behind the myth. Actually, Mussolini only writes of a period of twenty-four hours, the day he was dismissed from the government, The bulk of the fall was written by Max Asoli, a critic of the man and his movement. In this section the curtain is stripped away revealing a timid little fellow manuvering a complex illusion-pyrotechnics that could not harm any one. The real Duce was a humbug-with ulcers... The really strong people in his life were his women: Clara Pettaci, Edda Ciano and most of all, Dona Rachele... Mussolini was more Napoleon III than Hitler, in fact Hitler was his nemesis, and Mussolini knew it! Il Duce first thought the Fuhrer was a degenerate but like a hypnotized rabbit would not flee in horror from the viper. The result was Mussolini's degregation and the negative verdict of history.

Lambs to the slaughter is a very interesting book and has exellent litreture in it.It is a good horror story and I would defiently recommend it to someone who likes horror storys.

This is a very frightening book. What makes it even scarier is that it's true. But, before you read this book, first read or see "Silence of the Lambs." That's what makes this book.

The political analyst and historian Richard Lamb waited 50 years after events so that the British archives could be freely searched for first drafts of letters, memos, cables, and other communiques. We learn what the principals were actually thinking and feeling before they toned down their language in later drafts. Many hints of Winston Churchill's less than perfect diplomacy and military "genius" are scattered through histories and memoirs that he could not bowdlerize. Along with a generally positive assessment of Churchill's popularity as at tough pitbull, these imperfections are highlighted in Lamb's account. Here we find Churchill to have been doggedly and impetuously fallible, terrible in confrontation, mulish in his negotiations, and very shrewd in his sub-rosa efforts to bring the United States into the war. He fired good generals and kept on mediocre ones; he blundered so badly with the French that Americans paid blood on the beaches of North Africa. He pushed for boyishly-conceived sallies against military advice and got blood on his hands for which he dodged responsibility.

Without stating so explicitly, Lamb makes it clear that of the three European warlords, Churchill was the least capable; if it had not been for the codebreakers (Ultra), Hitler's strategies and tactics likely would have mangled every British, Canadian, and British-American venture. And the perfidy Churchill used to further his post-war aims for the British Empire was outclassed and outgunned by Stalin.

Lamb's prose is elegant as his research is uncannily good. Every WWII amateur should read this book. Pity that it went out of print.

It has been quite awhile since I've read this book, but I want to tell students, professors, and other people with mental illness like me (I suffer from recurrent depression) that this book gives an excellent description of what it is like to be among the mentally ill and what it is like to deal with chronic mental illness.

The author immerses herself in the lives of a group of patients (clients) at a day treatment setting (which would probably now be horribly called "partial hospitalization") in a Northern city. She shows compassion for the clients, but, as I remember it, she really tells it like it is: there is no glorification of mental health treatment, there is direct honesty about the tough lives of the clients.

I, myself, have been in a very similar setting to the one that Estroff describes, and I know the sense of cameraderie that is fostered, as well as, sadly, for most people, the lack of increased or better functioning that occurs.

Overall, I think that Estroff's book, even though it is deeply descriptive (and meant to be such), nevertheless points out the desperate need for such programs in our society.

Mr. Lamb's effort is both moving and informative, serving to highlight many events in a post-surrender WWII Italy. A notoriously nebulous period, the author's detailed account of the state of this suddenly turbulent European power is tremendous. His research and reporting on the Allies' treatment of this fallen Axis enemy, the mounting strain of German-Italo relations throughout Mussolini's puppet regime, the uncertainty facing Italian armed forces in occupied territories and the relationships between partisans, civilians and the Italian Royal Army is unparalleled. Furthermore, Lamb gives the reader a clear understanding of Fascism's misgivings and failure, portraying a beaten, poweless dictator unable rally a nation under seige. A must read for anyone fascinated with WW II Italy.

This book helped me "take stock" of where my life is going several years AFTER my own college graduation. I found Rich Lamb both practical and inspiring. This book is an excellent resource for anyone in their 20s and early 30s as well.

In this book, Rich Lamb takes our preconceptions of life after college and reverses them. In doing so, he suggests wonderful alternatives to the acceptable post-college tracks: med school, law schoo, business school, grad school, ibanking, etc. It's a very practical guide for Christians in college -- and I wouldn't wait until your senior year to read it. I've met the author, and it's wonderful to see how he and the students he has discipled have tried to live this good life.

In this visionary work, Richard Lamb provides a rare and long-needed treatise on what it means to take a Biblical foundation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and turn it into the practical choices of how to spend your life. Written by a Stanford grad, Biblically based, with questions and exercises--almost a workshop on evaluating your priorities and values. Not just for college seniors-- A treasure for anyone preparing to "enter the real world" and hoping to live boldly as a Christian in today's society! A great gift for college students.

This book is a thoughtful and highly readable text about two thoughtful and deliberative members of the U.S. Senate. It would be very useful for any government class interested in learning how the system really works and interested in learning how two honorable men conduct their work.

This book is an excellent comparison of two very important men in American politics, a definite buy.

Mr. Lamb's elegant expose of the sordid social and political lives of two U.S. senators deserves high praise. Who would've known that two of our country's most distinguished luminaries are afflicted by a neurotic obsession with cheese? Who would've suspected that two of the hottest stars on the contemporary political scene exhaust valuable office time smearing each other with various dips and sauces. Between you and me, they're partial to Hollandaise sauce, but that's all I'll say. I don't want to let any more cats out of the bag. There is, though, a final kitten that I will set free. Buy this book. Next to my collection of Charo biographies, it's about the neatest batch of words I could hope to come across. Ciao. Foofy McDougall

"Dangerous if read too late in life", Hemmingway.

This is an excellent book if you can find it.

I have just read this book and I think I could place it among the ones I liked the most (together with Gerald Durrell's ones): what I prefered was the poetic that filled the whole book , in the descriptions of landscapes, and people, that poetic you can't find in modern writers.

The content is practical, useful with many case study