In The Rebirth of Italy Mark Thompson tracks the emergence of modern Italy from the disasters of fascism and the vicious civil war that followed the fall of Mussolini: the creation of a flawed, more or less democratic republic by the Allies, one which left many aspects of fascist policy in place. Many thousands of armed Communist partisans wanted revenge and revolution; equal numbers of unreconstructed fascists held onto their posts. An obscure former Vatican official became Italy's first Christian Democratic prime minister. This is a story of great power, intrigue, Cold War hysteria, high drama and violence, but also of extraordinary creativity unleashed in literature, cinema, painting and design. Italian movies ( De Sica , Rosselini , Visconti ) were the most exciting in the world, while writers like Montale, Calvino, Moravia, Morante and Ginzburg were translated into all the major languages. Thompson has a unique ability to fuse political, military and cultural history and brilliantly conveys the story of a period of Italian history less commonly told.