Though I don't know if I've read any Hemmingway - I certainly haven't read this - I may have read some of his short stories while in school.
What I find interesting is there are some parallels between this and a book that I recently finished called The Strategists. It's an in-depth look into Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt - and Mussolini.
My takeaway from this book about Benito was that, aside from the fact that he was an idiot, was that he was a self-aggrandizing coward and glory hound who had a very inflated ego and opinion of the might of the Italian army. He was very good at avoiding the thick of the fighting, and when everything began falling apart, pointing the blame for his failures to everyone but himself, including having his son-in-law executed.
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Date: 2025-05-22 03:47 pm (UTC)What I find interesting is there are some parallels between this and a book that I recently finished called The Strategists. It's an in-depth look into Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Roosevelt - and Mussolini.
My takeaway from this book about Benito was that, aside from the fact that he was an idiot, was that he was a self-aggrandizing coward and glory hound who had a very inflated ego and opinion of the might of the Italian army. He was very good at avoiding the thick of the fighting, and when everything began falling apart, pointing the blame for his failures to everyone but himself, including having his son-in-law executed.