"At the end of October 1922, in a whirlwind of events and unexpected circumstances, Benito Mussolini became prime minister of Italy. For the next twenty years, he dominated Italy as a cult hero and the duce of fascism and, later, founder of the empire. This richly textured cultural history traces the narrative path that accompanied the making of the fascist regime and the construction of Mussolini's power."--BOOK JACKET.

"Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi reads fascist myths, rituals, images, and speeches as texts that tell the story of fascism. Linking Mussolini's elaboration of a new style of rule to the shaping of the regime's identity, she finds that in searching for symbolic means and forms to represent its political novelty, fascism actually created its own power, its own happening, its history."--BOOK JACKET.