A brilliant young historian follows the odyssey of Mussolini's body in an original exploration of the history and legacy of Italian Fascism Bullet-ridden, spat on, butchered bloody: this was the fate of Il Duce, strung up beside his dead mistress in a Milan square, as reviled in death as he was adored in life. With Italy's defeat in World War II, the cult of Benito Mussolini's physical self was brought to its grotesque denouement by a frenzied, jeering crowd of thousands-one eerily similar to the cheering throngs that had once roared their approval beneath Il Duce's balcony. In this groundbreaking work, Sergio Luzzatto traces the fortunes of the Fascist dictator's body: from his charisma, virility, and magnetic domination of Fascist parades, to his humiliating execution, the ugly display of his remains, and beyond. Buried, exhumed, stolen, and hidden for ten years, Il Duce's corpse was finally laid to rest, a shrine for fanatical followers. Through this pursuit, Luzzatto shows how in a totalitarian state the body of the ruler comes to incarnate the nation. And from the indignities visited on Mussolini's corpse, Luzzatto crafts a subtle social and intellectual history of a country struggling to become a republic and free itself from the thrall of Fascism. Elegantly written and stunningly conceived, alive with never-before-published letters, diaries, and reports, The Body of Il Duce cuts a new and compelling path through twentieth-century history.
The first historical appraisal of the astonishing life and times of a controversial twentieth-century saint Padre Pio is one of the world's most beloved holy figures, more popular in Italy than the Virgin Mary and even Jesus. His tomb is the most visited Catholic shrine anywhere, drawing more devotees than Lourdes. His miraculous feats included the ability to fly and to be present in two places at once; an apparition of Padre Pio in midair prevented Allied warplanes from dropping bombs on his hometown. Most notable of all were his stigmata, which provoke heated controversy to this day. Were they truly God-given? A psychosomatic response to extreme devotion? Or, perhaps, the self-inflicted wounds of a charlatan? Now acclaimed historian Sergio Luzzatto offers a pioneering investigation of this remarkable man and his followers. Neither a worshipful hagiography nor a sensationalist exposé, Padre Pio is a nuanced examination of the persistence of mysticism in contemporary society and a striking analysis of the links between Catholicism and twentieth-century politics. Granted unprecedented access to the Vatican archives, Luzzatto has also unearthed a letter from Padre Pio himself in which the monk asks for a secret delivery of carbolic acid—a discovery which helps explain why two successive popes regarded Padre Pio as a fraud, until pressure from Pio-worshipping pilgrims forced the Vatican to change its views. A profoundly original tale of wounds and wonder, salvation and swindle, Padre Pio explores what it really means to be a saint in our time.
A daring investigation of Primo Levi's brief career as a fighter with the Italian Resistance, and the grim secret that haunted his life No other Auschwitz survivor has been as literarily powerful and historically influential as Primo Levi. Yet Levi was not only a victim or a witness. In the fall of 1943, at the very start of the Italian Resistance, he was a fighter, participating in the first attempts to launch guerrilla warfare against occupying Nazi forces. Those three months have been largely overlooked by Levi's biographers; indeed, they went strikingly unmentioned by Levi himself. For the rest of his life he barely acknowledged that autumn in the Alps. But an obscure passage in Levi's The Periodic Table hints that his deportation to Auschwitz was linked directly to an incident from that time: "an ugly secret" that had made him give up the struggle, "extinguishing all will to resist, indeed to live." What did Levi mean by those dramatic lines? Using extensive archival research, Sergio Luzzatto's groundbreaking Primo Levi's Resistance reconstructs the events of 1943 in vivid detail. Just days before Levi was captured, Luzzatto shows, his group summarily executed two teenagers who had sought to join the partisans, deciding the boys were reckless and couldn't be trusted. The brutal episode has been shrouded in silence, but its repercussions would shape Levi's life. Combining investigative flair with profound empathy, Primo Levi's Resistance offers startling insight into the origins of the moral complexity that runs through the work of Primo Levi himself.
Moshe's Children presents the inspiring story of Moshe Zeiri, a Jewish carpenter responsible for rescuing hundreds of Jewish refugee children who had survived the Final Solution. During the liberation of Italy, Zeiri, a volunteer in the British Army in Italy, assumed responsibility for and vowed to help around seven hundred Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and Romanian children. Although these orphans of the Shoah had been deprived of a family, a home, and a language and were irreparably robbed of their past, they were able to rebuild their lives through Zeiri's efforts as he founded the largest Jewish orphanage in postwar Europe in Selvino, Italy, where he began to rehabilitate the orphans and to teach them how to become citizens of the new nation of Israel. Moshe's Children also explores Zeiri's own story from birth in a shtetl to his upbringing and Zionist education, his journey to the Land of Israel, and his work there before the war. With narrative verve and scholarly acumen, Sergio Luzzatto brilliantly tells the gripping stories of these orphans of the Holocaust and the good man who helped point them to a real future"--
A brilliant young historian follows the odyssey of Mussolini's body in an original exploration of the history and legacy of Italian Fascism Bullet-ridden, spat on, butchered bloody: this was the fate of Il Duce, strung up beside his dead mistress in a Milan square, as reviled in death as he was adored in life. With Italy's defeat in World War II, the cult of Benito Mussolini's physical self was brought to its grotesque denouement by a frenzied, jeering crowd of thousands-one eerily similar to the cheering throngs that had once roared their approval beneath Il Duce's balcony. In this groundbreaking work, Sergio Luzzatto traces the fortunes of the Fascist dictator's body: from his charisma, virility, and magnetic domination of Fascist parades, to his humiliating execution, the ugly display of his remains, and beyond. Buried, exhumed, stolen, and hidden for ten years, Il Duce's corpse was finally laid to rest, a shrine for fanatical followers. Through this pursuit, Luzzatto shows how in a totalitarian state the body of the ruler comes to incarnate the nation. And from the indignities visited on Mussolini's corpse, Luzzatto crafts a subtle social and intellectual history of a country struggling to become a republic and free itself from the thrall of Fascism. Elegantly written and stunningly conceived, alive with never-before-published letters, diaries, and reports, The Body of Il Duce cuts a new and compelling path through twentieth-century history.
Moshe's Children presents the inspiring story of Moshe Zeiri, a Jewish carpenter responsible for rescuing hundreds of Jewish refugee children who had survived the Final Solution. During the liberation of Italy, Zeiri, a volunteer in the British Army in Italy, assumed responsibility for and vowed to help around seven hundred Polish, Hungarian, Russian, and Romanian children. Although these orphans of the Shoah had been deprived of a family, a home, and a language and were irreparably robbed of their past, they were able to rebuild their lives through Zeiri's efforts as he founded the largest Jewish orphanage in postwar Europe in Selvino, Italy, where he began to rehabilitate the orphans and to teach them how to become citizens of the new nation of Israel. Moshe's Children also explores Zeiri's own story from birth in a shtetl to his upbringing and Zionist education, his journey to the Land of Israel, and his work there before the war. With narrative verve and scholarly acumen, Sergio Luzzatto brilliantly tells the gripping stories of these orphans of the Holocaust and the good man who helped point them to a real future.
The first historical appraisal of the astonishing life and times of a controversial twentieth-century saint Padre Pio is one of the world's most beloved holy figures, more popular in Italy than the Virgin Mary and even Jesus. His tomb is the most visited Catholic shrine anywhere, drawing more devotees than Lourdes. His miraculous feats included the ability to fly and to be present in two places at once; an apparition of Padre Pio in midair prevented Allied warplanes from dropping bombs on his hometown. Most notable of all were his stigmata, which provoke heated controversy to this day. Were they truly God-given? A psychosomatic response to extreme devotion? Or, perhaps, the self-inflicted wounds of a charlatan? Now acclaimed historian Sergio Luzzatto offers a pioneering investigation of this remarkable man and his followers. Neither a worshipful hagiography nor a sensationalist exposé, Padre Pio is a nuanced examination of the persistence of mysticism in contemporary society and a striking analysis of the links between Catholicism and twentieth-century politics. Granted unprecedented access to the Vatican archives, Luzzatto has also unearthed a letter from Padre Pio himself in which the monk asks for a secret delivery of carbolic acid—a discovery which helps explain why two successive popes regarded Padre Pio as a fraud, until pressure from Pio-worshipping pilgrims forced the Vatican to change its views. A profoundly original tale of wounds and wonder, salvation and swindle, Padre Pio explores what it really means to be a saint in our time.
An investigation of Primo Levi's brief career as a fighter with the Italian Resistance in 1943, focusing particularly on an incident in which two young men sought to join his partisan group but were judged untrustworthy and summarily executed"--
This volume comprises three main parts: The first includes five broad overviews of the current status of Jewish affairs. The second part includes six chapters, each of which reviews the main recent trends and policy issues relevant to Jewish life in six world regions which articulate contemporary Jewish life: North America; Latin America; Europe and the European Union; the Former Soviet Union; Asia, Africa, and the Pacific; and Israel. The third part introduces an overview of the goals and tasks accomplished by the main Jewish institutions and organizations worldwide in the definition and defense of Jewish interests.
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