Books by "Philip V. Cannistraro"
3 books found
This book adds to this growing body of scholarship on the Italian Resistance by analysing, for the first time, how the 'three wars' are represented over the broad spectrum of Resistance culture from 1945 to the present day. Furthermore, it makes this contribution to scholarship by bridging the gap between historical and cultural analysis. Whereas historians frequently use literary texts in their writings, they are often flawed by an insufficiently nuanced understanding of what a literary text is. Likewise, literary critics who have discussed writers such as Calvino and Vittorini, or films such Paisà and La notte di San Lorenzo, only refer in passing to the historical context in which these works were produced. By fusing historical and cultural analysis, author Philip Cooke makes a unique contribution to our understanding of a key period of Italian history and culture.
An in-depth history of the Big Six, the first six female ambassadors for the United States. “It used to be,” soon-to-be secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright said in 1996, “that the only way a woman could truly make her foreign policy views felt was by marrying a diplomat and then pouring tea on an offending ambassador’s lap.” This world of US diplomacy excluded women for a variety of misguided reasons: they would let their emotions interfere with the task of diplomacy, they were not up to the deadly risks that could arise overseas, and they would be unable to cultivate the social contacts vital to success in the field. The men of the State Department objected but had to admit women, including the first female ambassadors: Ruth Bryan Owen, Florence “Daisy” Harriman, Perle Mesta, Eugenie Anderson, Clare Boothe Luce, and Frances Willis. These were among the most influential women in US foreign relations in their era. Using newly available archival sources, Philip Nash examines the history of the “Big Six” and how they carved out their rightful place in history. After a chapter capturing the male world of American diplomacy in the early twentieth century, the book devotes one chapter to each of the female ambassadors and delves into a number of topics, including their backgrounds and appointments, the issues they faced while on the job, how they were received by host countries, the complications of protocol, and the press coverage they received, which was paradoxically favorable yet deeply sexist. In an epilogue that also provides an overview of the role of women in modern US diplomacy, Nash reveals how these trailblazers helped pave the way for more gender parity in US foreign relations. Praise for Breaking Protocol “Here at last is the long-neglected story of America's pioneering women diplomats. Breaking Protocol reveals the contributions of six trail-blazers who practiced innovative statecraft in order to surmount all kinds of obstacles?including many posed by their own employer, the U.S. State Department. Philip Nash's illuminating study offers an invaluable foundation for our understanding of contemporary foreign policy decision-makers.” —Sylvia Bashevkin, author of Women as Foreign Policy Leaders: National Security and Gender Politics in Superpower America “Diplomacy is the one field of public political life that has been relatively open to women?we need only think of Hillary Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, and Madeleine Albright. In Breaking Protocol, Philip Nash reminds us of the history of their achievements with an enduring and enticing record of the much longer, surprising history of female diplomats and their individual efforts to shape American and international politics.” —Glenda Sluga, University of Sydney
“[A] well-informed account of the woman behind Mussolini’s rise to power... Margherita Sarfatti, an art critic and daughter of an influential Venetian Jewish family... became known as his ‘inspiratrice,’ directing his reading (Proudhon and Machiavelli, among others), bolstering his belief in his greatness, and helping him to mold his vision of a new Roman Empire. Though an ardent socialist, Sarfatti supported Italian involvement in WWI, an action that got her expelled from the Socialist Party. After the war, she and Mussolini worked together to forge the Fascist Party from two unlikely allies, the nationalists and socialists, and watched their creation grow to power, nourished by conditions of mass unemployment, street-fighting, and demagoguery given credibility by electoral success. Sarfatti, the authors contend, had ‘a far more flexible and inventive political imagination’ than Mussolini, and she was a central figure during these formative years — yet her affair with the dictator, and her influence, waned during the early 30’s. In 1938, in the face of Il Duce’s growing anti-Semitism, Sarfatti fled to Argentina with two suitcases full of jewels and modern art, treasures that she later parlayed into a position as one of the most important art collectors of the mid-century. She died in Italy in 1961... hers is a remarkable, sometimes tragic, tale.” — Kirkus “[A] carefully researched, highly detailed, and interesting... history of fascist Italy. Its authors, both with academic affiliations, have avoided the pitfalls of academese to produce an account that will be enjoyable to the general reader.” — Barbara Walden, Library Journal “A person of exceptional erudition and culture, Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961) was the Italian dictator’s lover, political adviser and intellectual mentor, the authors show in their enlightening study... In their excellent biography of this difficult, dynamic, memorable woman, Cannistraro and Sullivan present aspects of her lover’s career not previously explored in detail: Mussolini’s experiences as a solider in WW I, his editorship of the socialist paper Avanti! and his active interest in creating a favorable international image of Fascist Italy.” — Publishers Weekly “Philip Cannistraro and Brian Sullivan have drawn on an extraordinary range of private papers and archives in order to write her biography. Besides the main plot of Sarfatti’s long involvement with Mussolini, their work contains a number of fascinating sub-plots. Their biography is important for the history of Italian Jews, socialism, feminism, the relationship between art and politics, Fascist propaganda and the image of Mussolini’s regime in the United States... it is hard not to be impressed by her energy, her boundless appetite for new knowledge and new experience, and her resilience in adversity... a fascinating biography of a remarkable woman.” — Adrian Lyttelton, The New York Review of Books “This long, detailed and deeply researched book... becomes less of a biography than an account of the development of Mussolini’s ideas, but with a new and original slant, never before explored... Margherita Sarfatti was a victim of her own making, corrupted by sexual obsession and a drive for power.” — Raleigh Trevelyan, The New York Times