Feeding fascism: the politics of women’s food work

Abstract

able to fully dominate. One may ask, however, if presenting the image of Mussolini as a weak dictator ultimately downplays Mussolini’s policies and the Duce’s determination to overcome said limits, especially in the second part of the 1930s. The regime’s radicalization entailed more than ‘boredom’ or ‘routine’. In a certain sense, making the point that fascist policies were ‘all show and no content’, and underlying the Duce’s ‘phantasy foreign policy schemes’ may lead to contradict somewhat the very reality of the regime that Corner correctly strives to reconstruct; think for instance, about the sections he devotes to anti-Semitic policies and war. The central question here is not so much the relative strength of the Fascist state, but its very nature, the party-state, which embodied the totality of the nation, and directed its mobilization and transformation. Corner’s scholarship is meticulous. He deserves much credit for tackling the memory of the Fascist Ventennio and its significance today in a thorough and perceptive manner. Despite possible disagreements with his argument in some sections of this book, it is evident that this work will stimulate further reflections on and discussion about the legacy of the Duce and his regime in contemporary Italy.