An academic account of Mussolini and his women.

R. J. B. Bosworth’s book starts with two chapters devoted to the sex life of Mussolini and a list of the women involved as well as their fates.

However, once he gets onto Claretta the book explores how and why she pursued Mussolini. Working with Claretta's diary entries, Bosworth gives us a view of Claretta who in many ways echoes what I’ve read of Eva Braun. Bosworth shows a woman obsessively infatuated with the Duce who used manufactured dramas in order to get her own way.

Don’t expect much many sensations here apart from details of her diary’s graphically detailed accounts of sexual life with Mussolini.

"R. J. B. Bosworth explores the social climbing of Claretta’s family, her naïve and self-interested commitment to fascism, her diary’s graphically detailed accounts of sexual life with Mussolini, and much more. Brimful of new and arresting information, the book sheds intimate light not only on an ordinary-extraordinary woman living at the heart of Italy’s totalitarian fascist state but also on Mussolini himself."

I knew very little about the woman who ended her days with Mussolini - and this book did much to expand upon my knowledge. Based upon Claretta's diary entries, Richard Bosworth gives us an insight into the mind of Claretta - who often appears as a petulant child, given to hysterics and dramas in order to get her own way; and whose idolisation and infatuation with the Italian leader borders on the slightly obsessive.

I was probably anticipating a different style of narrative (hence my two stars), and with a sold two initial chapters devoted to the sex-life of Mussolini and his list of his lovers (or rather conquests) and their fates, I began to wonder when we might meet Claretta and discover how she met her ultimate fate.

The love-life of Mussolini is worthy of a book itself - chapter upon chapter could then be set aside for the multitude of women in his life - of which Claretta was but one. I consider this work, however, to be more for the academic rather than someone looking for a scandalous tell-all.

A fascinating read that takes its lead from current historical interests in gender and the emotions to give an account of Mussolini's sex life using the resources of Claretta Petacci's journals and letters.

Bosworth is well aware of classical models such as those of Tacitus and Suetonius which equate sex and tyranny but he maybe does more to develop than contest them. The research here is extensive but remains accessible to those of us not familiar with Italian politics in the first half of the twentieth century.

In some ways, nevertheless, the book continues to marginalise Claretta herself in order to privilege Mussolini: while her writings are the archival sources, they are used to illuminate the public face of Mussolini via his private life. Somewhere amongst this, Claretta herself disappears.

The vast amount of material sometimes feels a little chaotic and might have been organised more coherently: for example, there's a passing circling of comparison between Mussolini's sexuality vs. that of Hitler (especially in relation to Eva Braun) and Stalin, but this discussion never feels definitive (as far as that is possible).

So unquestionably an interesting read with access to, and a marshalling of, a wide range of European sources.