Mussolini as Diplomat

Book excerpt: "Was Mussolini's alliance with Hitler foreordained? Could Italy have been kept out of the Second World War? Did the policy of England's Anthony Eden really push Mussolini into Hitler's arms instead of luring him back to his former policy of friendship with Great Britain? These are some of the intriguing questions which historian Richard Lamb asks about the Italian dictator's foreign policy toward Germany, on the one hand, and Britain and France on the other before he plunged his country into the disastrous alliance with Hitler." "Lamb's revisionist assessment of Mussolini's diplomatic blunders in his relations to the other European powers is based on British and Italian documents finally released after more than half a century."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved