New Updated Edition

Silvio Berlusconi, a self-made man with a taste for luxurious living, owner of a huge television empire and, most recently, the man who likened a German MEP to a Nazi concentration-camp guard—small wonder that much of democratic Europe and America has responded with considerable dismay and disdain to his governance of Italy.

Paul Ginsborg, contemporary Italy’s foremost historian, explains here why we should take Berlusconi seriously. His new book combines historical narrative—Berlusconi’s childhood in the dynamic and paternalist Milanese bourgeoisie, his strict religious schooling, a working life which has encompassed crooning, large construction projects and the creation of a commercial television empire—with careful analysis of Berlusconi’s political development. While never forgetting the italianità of Berlusconi’s trajectory, he argues that the Italian example is highly instructive for all modern societies. What Berlusconi represents—the relationship between the media system and politics, the nature of personal dominion at a time of crisis in representative democracy, the connection between the consumer world, families and politics, and the exploitation of the wide-open spaces left by the strategic weaknesses of modern left-wing politics—are, Ginsborg suggests, near-universal.

“[Ginsborg’s] sober, thoughtful book will be of value not only to anyone interested in Italy but to anyone interested in how populist politics, money, and control of the mass media’s reservoir of fantasy can combine to override the democratic process.” — The Nation

“A scholar with thirty years’ experience in Italy and the author of perhaps the best history of contemporary Italy in English or Italian ...” — New York Review of Books

“Mr. Ginsborg’s succinct and lucid account is a history of Mr. Berlusconi’s trajectory to power and an analysis of how his business interests — and his privatization ideologies form a coherent project for political and cultural dominance.” — New York Times

“A compelling hatchet job ... admirable precision and succinctness.” — Sunday Times


Author of the highly acclaimed books A History of Contemporary Italy and Italy and Its Discontents, Paul Ginsborg teaches history at Florence University.

Cloth
1 84467 000 7
£16 / US$25 / CAN$37

Paper
1 84467 541 6
£8.99 / US$16 /CAN$23