Readers will learn about: Mussolini's impoverished childhood--brutalized by his father, indulged by his mother; the brilliant student who was also a juvenile delinquent and knife-wielding bully; from socialist journalist to the founder of the National Fascist Party in 1919 and head of government in 1922; Hitler could learn a thing or two--how Mussolini's Roman salute and Black Shirt militia were copied by the German Fuhrer; Il Duce's role in the conquest of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War, and his dreams of a new Roman Empire; Mussolini the man--the family man who kept a succession of mistresses, who betrayed his friends, and turned his back on Italy's Jews after promising to protect them; the 1939 "Pact of Steel" and World War II--the beginning of the end for Mussolini; and the final years--Mussolini overthrown, rescued by German commandos, the puppet of Hitler, his execution and the rough justice his body was dealt by a Milanese mob