David I. Kertzer is the Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science and professor of anthropology and Italian studies at Brown University, where he served as provost from 2006 to 2011. He is the author of twelve books, including The Pope and Mussolini, winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the American Historical Association prize for best book on Italian history, and The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997. He has twice been awarded the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies for the best book on Italian history and in 2005 was elected to membership in the American Association of Arts and Sciences. He and his wife, Susan, live in Providence, Rhode Island.
“David Kertzer has an eye for a story, an ear for the right word,
and an instinct for human tragedy. They all come together
in The Pope and Mussolini to document, with meticulous
scholarship and novelistic flair, the complicity between Pius XI
and the Fascist leader in creating an unholy alliance between the
Vatican and a totalitarian government rooted in corruption and
brutality. This is a sophisticated blockbuster.”—Joseph J. Ellis,
Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Revolutionary Summer
“Much more attention has been given to the Vatican’s compromises
and complicity with Hitler, but Kertzer tells a fascinating and
tragic story of its self-interested support for Mussolini when he
was vulnerable early on.”—The New Yorker
“Revelatory . . . [a] detailed portrait of the inner workings of
the Vatican in this period . . . The general outlines of this story
have always been matters of public record, but Kertzer’s book
deepens and alters our understanding considerably. The portrait
that emerges from it suggests a much more organic and symbiotic
relationship between the Church and fascism. Rather than seeing the
Church as having passively accepted fascism as a fait accompli,
Kertzer sees it as having provided fundamental support to Mussolini
in his consolidation of power and the establishment of dictatorship
in Italy.”—The New York Review of Books
“Gripping storytelling . . . a book whose narrative strength is as
impressive as its moral subtlety . . . Kertzer has uncovered a
fascinating tale of two irascible—and often irrational—potentates,
and gives us an account of some murky intellectual finagling, and
an often startling investigation of the exercise of power.”—The
Guardian
“Captivating . . . the real Da Vinci Code—only it’s rigorously
documented and far less implausible.”—San Francisco
Chronicle
“The papacy of Pius XI remained essentially a foil for discussing
his successor. Kertzer’s excellent volume will change all of that.
. . . From the outset of his new book, Kertzer deftly reconstructs
the parallel lives of Achille Ratti, who became Pius XI, and of
Benito Mussolini, both men whose beginnings do not point to the
historic role that they began to play in 1922. The narration
unfolds along the separate political, ideological, and
institutional backgrounds of the Pope’s and Duce’s careers and
brings up in fascinating detail the issues on which their interests
converged and clashed. . . . Kertzer’s essential book reveals a
window on this sordid history—a window that for a long time was
shuttered, but will not be obscured anymore.”—The New Republic
“Stunning . . . remarkable . . . Kertzer authoritatively banishes
decades of denial and uncertainty about the Vatican's relationship
with Italy’s fascist state.”—The Christian Science Monitor
“A capstone on David Kertzer’s already crucial work, The Pope
and Mussolini carefully and eloquently advances the painful
but necessary truth of Vatican failure to meet its greatest moral
test. This is history for the sake of justice.”—James Carroll,
National Book Award–winning author of Constantine’s Sword
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