At 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome's Campidoglio Square and shot Mussolini at point-blank range. He escaped virtually unscathed. Violet Gibson, who expected to be thanked for her action, was arrested, labeled a "crazy Irish spinster" and a "half-mad mystic"---and promptly forgotten. Now, in an elegant work of reconstruction, Frances Stonor Saunders retrieves this remarkable figure from the lost historical record. In a grand tragic narrative, full of suspense and mystery, conspiracy and back-room diplomacy, she vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe, whatever the cost.

The Woman Who Shot Mussolini: A Biography

Biographies & Memoirs

Stonor Saunders, Frances

Community & Culture

Picador

The astonishing untold story of a woman who tried to stop the rise of Fascism and change the course of history
At 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd on Rome’s Campidoglio Square. Less than a foot in front of her stood Benito Mussolini. As he raised his arm to give the Fascist salute, the woman raised hers and shot him at point-blank range. Mussolini escaped virtually unscathed, cheered on by practically the whole world. Violet Gibson, who expected to be thanked for her action, was arrested, labeled a “crazy Irish spinster” and a “half-mad mystic”—and promptly forgotten. 
Now, in an elegant work of reconstruction, Frances Stonor Saunders retrieves this remarkable figure from the lost historical record. She examines Gibson’s aristocratic childhood in the Dublin elite, with its debutante balls and presentations at court; her engagement with the critical ideas of the era—pacifism, mysticism, and socialism; her completely overlooked role in the unfolding drama of Fascism and the cult of Mussolini; and her response to a new and dangerous age when anything seemed possible but everything was at stake.
In a grand tragic narrative, full of suspense and mystery, conspiracy and backroom diplomacy, Stonor Saunders vividly resurrects the life and times of a woman who sought to forestall catastrophe, whatever the cost.

The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Metropolitan Books

'Frances Stonor Saunders is one of those writers you read no matter what she writes. She is that good... This is family history at its best... the words fizz off the page and flutter in the mind' Sunday Times\nTen years ago, Frances Stonor Saunders was handed an old suitcase filled with her father's papers. 'If you open that suitcase you'll never close it again,' warned her mother. Her father's life had been a study in borders - exiled from Romania during the war, to Turkey then Egypt and eventually Britain, and ultimately to the borderless territory of Alzheimer's. The unopened suitcase seems to represent everything that had made her father unknowable to her in life. Now she finds herself with the dilemma of two competing urges: wanting to know what's in the suitcase, and wanting not to know.\nSo begins this captivating exploration of history, memory and geography, as Frances Stonor Saunders unpicks her father's and his family's past. Is it possible to bring her father back, to summon once more someone who was distant and elusive when alive? The past is always the history of loss, of black holes, of things gone missing. Life is a long forgetting, even as we live it. The Suitcase is an extraordinary, heroic effort of retrieval, driven by the ache for completion. It is about the silences and stories that protect us, and the borders we construct, literally and figuratively, to fortify our sense of who we are.

The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border

Parenting & Relationships

JONATHAN CAPE.

La CIA y la guerra fría cultural (Temas De Debate / Debate Subjects) (Spanish Edition)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

Debate

Una historia apasionante de un sistema de mecenazgo clandestino que no tiene precedentes en la historia contemporánea. 
Durante la guerra fría los escritores y los artistas se enfrentaron a un gran reto. En la esfera soviética, se esperaba que produjeran obras que exaltaran la militancia, la lucha y un optimismo sin límites. En Occidente, la libertad de expresión era la virtud más preciada de las democracias liberales. Pero esa libertad tenía un precio. 
Este libro documenta el extraordinario vigor de una campaña secreta en la que algunos de los defensores más ardientes de la libertad de pensamiento en Occidente (entre otros, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre y Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) fueron, lo supieran o no, instrumentos del servicio secreto estadounidense. 
La crítica ha dicho... 
«Una obra fundamental de investigación» 
Edward W. Said 
«Saunders es espléndida al contar las ironías éticas y políticas de los proyectos culturales de la CIA.» 
San Francisco Chronicle 
«Una historia de intriga y traición, con escenas tan emocionantes como las de cualquier novela de Le Carré.» 
The Chronicle of Higher Education 
«Escrita con gran sentido del humor y comprensión de las circunstancias históricas.» 
Los Angeles Times Book Review 
«La mejor crónica de las actividades de la CIA entre 1947 y 1967.» 
The New York Times 
«Una contribución esencial para la comprensión de la posguerra.» 
The Wall Street Journal

La CIA y la guerra fría cultural (Spanish Edition)

History

World

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