With his signature insight and compelling style, Christopher Hibbert�explains the extraordinary complexities and contradictions that characterized Benito Mussolini.� Mussolini�was born on a Sunday afternoon in 1883 in a village in central Italy. On a Saturday afternoon in 1945 he was shot by Communist partisans on the shores of Lake Como. In the�sixty-two years in between those two fateful afternoons Mussolini lived one of the most dramatic lives in modern history. Hibbert traces Mussolini’s�unstoppable rise to power and�details the nuances of his�facist ideology. This book examines Mussolini’s legacy and reveals why he�continues to be�both revered and reviled by the Italian people.