The Brutal Friendship : Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism

This famous and important book was first published in 1962. With disarming modesty, the author describes it as ''a book by an Englishman, in part based on German documents, on the fall of the Fascist government in Italy.'' It is, but such downbeat words give no idea of the monumental scale of the narrative. In detail, the decline and fall of the Fascist regime in Italy is chronicled leading to the dramatic downfall of Mussolini himself in July, 1943.

The narrative then traces Mussolini''s return to power as head of the puppet satellite Nazi republic in the North after his abduction from internment by SS paratroopers in September, and then follows the dictator''s fate through the final six hundred days of the final disintegration of Fascism.

''The Brutal Friendship massive, impersonal and enthralling, is not only an important contribution to recent history, but an example of how to write it.'' John Hale, Sunday Telgraph

''This is a very fine piece of writing and . . . it makes enthralling reading.'' Times Literary Supplement