This is my cv (and, of course, as my books show, I love writing and am pretty fond of Italy, one Italy or other, that is.
CURRICULUM VITAE OF RICHARD JAMES BOON BOSWORTH
Born: 7 December 1943, Sydney
1960 Dux, SCEGS, North Sydney
1965 BA 1st Class Honours, University of Sydney
1965-6 Teaching Fellow, University of Sydney
1966-9 Commonwealth Scholar to the UK based at St. John’s College, Cambridge
1967 MA 1st Class Honours, University of Sydney
1969 Lecturer in History, University of Sydney
1971 PhD, University of Cambridge
1973-9 Editor of Teaching History, journal of the NSW History Teachers’ Federation.
1975 Senior Lecturer in History, University of Sydney
1981 Associate Professor in History, University of Sydney
1981-5 Deputy Director, F. May Foundation for Italian Studies
1982-3 ; 1986 Acting Director, F. May Foundation for Italian Studies
1985 Appointed to the Chair in History, University of Western Australia (taken up on 1 January 1987-November 2011)
1988-1990 Head of Department
1991- (July to October) Visiting Research Fellow, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University
1992 (January to August) Visiting Overseas Scholar, St John's College, Cambridge.
1993-7 Member, Editorial Board, International History Review
1993- Member, Editorial Board, Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia
Member, Editorial Board, Convivio: a Journal of Italian Studies;
Editorial advisor, Modern Italy.
1995-7 Staff elected member, UWA Senate; 1995- Fellow, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia; Fellow, Australian Academy of the Humanities.
1997-8 Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge from November 1997 to July 1998.
1998 Elected Life Member, Clare Hall.
2000 (March) Visiting Fellow Italian Academy, Columbia University.
2002 (January-May) Visiting Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford.
Member board International Commission for the History of Travel and Tourism.
Member Editorial board History Compass; accorded Australian Centenary Medal 'for services to history and the humanities'; won the overall Western Australian Premier's prize for literature and that for non-fiction, as well as the National History Prize, given by the Queensland government (for my biography of Mussolini).
2003 Converted to being research professor, UWA.
2004 Visiting Professor, University of Trento, Italy (February to June).
2004-5 Full Year Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford.
2007-2011 Shared 0.5 professorships in History Departments at Reading University, U.K. and the University of Western Australia (Winthrop professor).
2009- Member editorial board History Australia; elected honorary member of the Modern European History Research Centre at Oxford University.
2011- Made Emeritus Professor at the University of Western Australia.
2011-7 Senior Research Fellow, Jesus College, Oxford (re-elected 2013).
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Publications:
a) Books:
1. Benito Mussolini and the Fascist Destruction of Liberal Italy, 1900-1945, Rigby, Adelaide, 1973.
2. Italy, the Least of the Great Powers: Italian Foreign Policy Before the First World War, Cambridge U.P., 1979, paperback edition, 2005.
3. (with G. Cresciani, eds), Altro Polo: a Volume of Italian Studies, F. May Foundation, Sydney, 1979.
4. Italy and the Approach of the First World War, Macmillan, London, 1983.
5. (With G. Rizzo, eds), Altro Polo: a Study of Intellectuals and Ideas in Contemporary Italy, F. May Foundation, Sydney, 1983, including my chapter on 'Italian foreign policy and its historiography' and my introduction.
6. (With J. Wilton), Old Worlds and New Australia: a History of Non-British Migration to Australia Since the Second World War, Penguin, Ringwood, 1984, (3rd ed., 1987).
7. La politica estera dell'Italia giolittiana, Riuniti, Rome, 1985 (translation of Italy the Least of the Great Powers).
8. (With M. Melia) (eds), Aspects of Ethnicity: Studies in Western Australian History, Vol. XII, Nedlands, 1991, including my 'Preface'; my 'Luigi Mistrorigo and La Stampa Italiana: the strange story of a Fascist journalist in Perth' and (with M. Melia) my 'The Italian feste of Western Australia and the myth of the universal church'.
9. (with S. Romano) (eds), La politica estera italiana, 1861-1985, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1991, including my 'Mito e linguaggio nella politica estera italiana'.
10. (with R. Ugolini) (eds), War, internment and mass migration: the Italo-Australian experience 1940-1990, Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, Rome, 1992 including my 'Introduction', and my (ed.) 'Oral histories of internment'.
11. Explaining Auschwitz and Hiroshima: history writing and the Second World War 1945-1990, Routledge, London, 1993 (paperback edition, 1994).
12 (with M. Bosworth), Fremantle's Italy, Gruppo Editoriale Internazionale, Rome, 1993.
13. Italy and the wider world 1860-1960, Routledge, London, 1996.
14. An annotated translation (with M. Melia) of Leopoldo Zunini's L'Australia attuale (Western Australia as it is today, 1906) University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands, 1997. The book also includes my introductory paper 'Leopoldo Zunini and Liberal Italy'.
15. The Italian dictatorship: problems and perspectives in the interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism, E. Arnold, London, OUP, New York, 1998 (paperback and hardcover).
16. (with Patrizia Dogliani eds), Italian Fascism: history, memory and representation, Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, London/New York, 1999 including my chapter 'Film memories of Fascism' and an 'Introduction' co-written with Dogliani; I also translated the five chapters in the book written by Italian authors.
17. Mussolini, Arnold, London, OUP, New York, 2002.
18. Mussolini, Barcelona, Peninsula, 2003 (Spanish translation of above).
19. Mussolini, Milan, A. Mondadori, 2004 (Italian translation of above; paperback ‘Oscar’ edition, 2005).
20. Mussolini’s Italy: life under the dictatorship 1915-1945, Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2005; (US edition, The Penguin Press, New York, 2006).
21. Nationalism (Pearson, London, 2007). Estonian translation as Natsionalism: moodsa rahvuste maailma religioon Kirjastus Pegasus, Tallinn, 2011.
22. L’Italia di Mussolini 1915-1945 (Italian translation of Mussolini’s Italy) Mondadori, Milan, 2007 (paperback edition, 2009).
23. The Oxford handbook of fascism, Oxford University Press, 2009. In this collection of 31 essays by international contributors, I myself wrote the Introduction and a chapter on ‘Dictators strong or weak? The model of Benito Mussolini’ and I joined with Nathan Stoltzfus in a chapter on ‘Memory and Representations of Fascism in Germany and Italy’. I also translated four chapters by the Italian contributors Canali, Corni, Dogliani and Franzinelli (paperback edition, October 2010).
24. rev. ed. of Mussolini, Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York, 2010 (Italian translation in rev. ed. by Mondadori, 2013; Estonian translation, Tallinn: Varrak, 2013; Slovenian translation, Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 2016).
25. Whispering city: Rome and its histories, Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2011.
26. (with Lindsay Stade and Stan Bell) From humble beginnings: the Mount Lawley Golf Club Perth Western Australia, Inglewood: MLGC, 2011.
27. Italian Venice: a history Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2014 (paperback edition, 2015).
28. (with Joe Maiolo, eds.), vol. II (Politics and ideology) of The Cambridge History of the Second World War (3 vols.) Cambridge University Press, 2015.
29. Claretta: Mussolini’s last lover (Yale University Press, London and New Haven, 2017).
b) Chapters in Books:
1. 'L'Italia dopo l'unificazione (1870-1914)'and 'L'Europa della belle epoque', in J.C. Allain, R.J.B. Bosworth et al., Il Passaggio del Secolo e la Grande Guerra, 2 vols., Jaca Books, Milan, 1983.
2. 'Italy and the end of the Ottoman Empire' in M. Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1984 (republished in new ed., 1996 with Frank Cass).
3. 'Italy's historians and the myth of Fascism' in R. Langhorne (ed.), Essays on Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War, Cambridge U.P., 1985.
4. 'Post-war Italian immigration', section in J. Jupp (ed.), The Australian People: an Encyclopedia of the Nation, its People and their Origins, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1988.
5. 'Italia e Australia: relazione in sviluppo?', in F. Lucchesi (ed.), Orizzonte Australia: percezione e realtà di un continente, Edizioni Unicopli, Milan, 1988.
6. 'Australia and Italian history', in C. Bettoni and J. Lo Bianco (eds), Understanding Italy: Language, culture, commerce, and Australian perspective, F. May Foundation, Sydney, 1989.
7. 'L'Italia d'Australia: 1988', in R. Ugolini (ed.), Italia - Australia 1788-1988, Edizioni dell'Ateneo, Rome, 1991.
8. 'Golf and Italian Fascism', in M.R. Farrally and A.J. Cochran (eds), Science and Golf III: proceedings of the 1998 World Scientific Congress of Golf, Human kinetics, London, 1999.
9. 'History, Fascism, Europe and Australia after the end of history', in B. Bennett (ed.), Australia in between cultures, Australian Academy of Humanities, Canberra, 1999.
10. In G. Moliterno (ed.), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture, Routledge, London and New York, 2000, I contributed the sections on anti-fascism (pp. 18-9); emigration (pp. 194-7); fascism and neo-fascism (pp. 212-40; foreign policy (pp. 239-241); historiography (pp. 268-271); Pertini, Sandro (p. 434); Resistance (pp. 508-9).
11. ‘The internment of Italians in Australia’, in F. Iacovetta, R. Perin and A. Principe (eds), Enemies within: Italian and other internees in Canada and abroad, University of Toronto Press, 2000.
12. ‘Australia’s Europe: a fading identity?’ in L. Tosi (ed.), Europe, its borders and the others, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Perugia, 2000.
13. ‘The Second World War’ in N.J. Smelser and P.B. Baltes (eds), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Pergamon, Oxford, 2001, (pp. 13771-7; also available electronically, 2002). Revised version in: James D. Wright (editor-in-chief), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd ed., Vol 21. Oxford: Elsevier, 2015, pp. 368–373.
14. seven articles of varied length in V. De Grazia and S. Luzzatto (eds), Enciclopedia sul fascismo, Einaudi, Turin, 2003. (‘Anglophobia’, Vol. I, pp. ; ‘Diplomazia’, vol. I, pp. ; ‘Monaco’ Vol. I, pp. ; ‘Politica estera’ Vol. II, pp. 398-403; ‘Trattato di Rapallo’, Vol. II, pp. 465-6; ‘ Stresa, conferenza di’ p. 706; ‘Turismo’ Vol. II, pp. 747-751).
15. 'Foreword' to G. Cresciani, The Italians in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2003 (pp. ix -xii).
16. 'Peace and war in the theory of Fascist Italy' in Chiba University conference on Global Public Peace and War from the perspective of state and rights, Chiba, 2004.
17. ‘Benito Mussolini’ in J. Winter and J. Merriman (eds), Europe since 1914: encyclopedia of the age of war and reconstruction C. Scribner, New York, 2006.
18. ‘Nationalism’ in G. Martel (ed.), A companion to international history 1900-2001 Blackwell, Oxford, 2007 (paperback edition, 2010), pp. 26-38.
19. ‘Italy’ in R. Gerwarth (ed.), Twisted paths: Europe 1914-1945 Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 161-183 (paperback, 2008).
20. ‘Foreword’ to G. Lichtner, Film and the Shoah in France and Italy London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008 pp. vii-ix.
21. ‘Rome 1905’ in R. Bosworth, C. Inman and J. Davidow, Rome memories of time past: 70 paintings by Alberto Pisa (Cambridge: Worth Press, 2008) pp. 5-18.
22. ‘”It would not be right to have beautiful legends discredited by historical criticism”’, in Michael Leventhal and Peter Furtado (eds), The hand of history: an anthology of history quotations and commentaries, London: Frontline Books, 2011, pp. 20-1.
23. ‘Italian foreign policy and the road to war, 1918-1939: ambitions and delusions of the least of the Great Powers’ in The Origins of the Second World War: 70 Years On (ed. F. Macdonough) (London: Continuum, 2011), pp. 66-81.
24. ‘Preface’ to G. Cresciani, Trieste goes to Australia, Sydney: Padana Press, 2011, pp. xvii-xix.
25. ‘”Ich schreibe, um mich selbst neu zu schreiben”: Der Fall Benito Mussolini’, in A. Koschorske and K. Kaminskij (eds), Despoten dichten: Sprachkunst und Gewalt (Konstanz University Press, 2011), pp. 67-93. (Russian translation, pp. 70-102, Moscow, 2014).
26. ‘Visionaries of expansion’, in T.W. Zeiler with Daneil DuBois (eds), A companion to the Second World War Vol. I, (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwells, 2013).
27. (with Michal Bosworth), ’Widening the university world’ in Jenny Gregory and Jean Chetokovich (eds), Seeking Wisdom: a centenary history of the University of Western Australia (Nedlands: UWA publishing, 2013).
28. ‘Afterword’ in S. Gundle, C.J.H. Duggan and G. Pieri and (eds), The cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians (Manchester University Press, 2013).
29 ‘Preface’ to G.Cresciani and B. Mascitelli (eds), Italy and Australia: an asymmetrical relationship (Ballarat: Connor Court Publishing, 2014).
30. With Giuseppe Finaldi, ‘The Italian empire’ in Robert Gerwarth and Erez Manela (eds), Empires at war 1911-1923 (Oxford University Press, 2014; paperback, 2015); (Portuguese edition with collaboration of Publicaçôes Dom Quixote, 2014; Arabic version, Kavir Book, 2015; Spanish version, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2015); Turkish version. Istanbul: İletişim Yayinlari, 2016).
31. ‘Victimhood asserted: Italian memories of World War II’ for Manuel Braganca and Peter Tame (eds) The Long Aftermath: cultural legacies of Europe at war, 1936-2016 (New York: Berghahn, 2016).
c) Articles:
1. 'The English, the historians and the età giolittiana', Historical Journal, XXI, 1969.
2. 'Sir Rennel Rodd e l'Italia', Nuova Rivista Storica, LIV, 1970.
3. 'The British press, the conservatives and Mussolini, 1920-34', Journal of Contemporary History, 5, 1970.
4. 'Britain and Italy's acquisition of the Dodecanese 1912-1915', Historical Journal, XIII, 1970.
5. The historiography of twentieth century Italy: answers and questions', Teaching History, 4, 1970.
6. 'Verdi and the Risorgimento', Italian Quarterly, XIV, 1971.
7. 'The Albanian forests of Signor Giacomo Vismara: a case study of Italian economic imperialism during foreign ministry of Antonino Di San Giuliano', Historical Journal, XVII, 1975.
8. 'The opening of the Victor Emmanuel monument', Italian Quarterly, XVIII, 1975.
9. 'The historiography of modern Italy: recent developments', Australian Journal of Politics and History, XXIII, 1977.
10. 'In the green corner, Denis Mack Smith, in the red? black? corner, Renzo De Felice: an account of the 1976 contest in the historiography of Italian Fascism', Teaching History, 11, 1977.
11. 'Why watermelons belong on the Left: the Italian general elections of 1976', Australian Outlook, 31, 1977.
12. 'The Messina earthquake of 28 December 1908', European Studies Review, 11, 1981.
13. (With J. Wilton), 'Novels, poems and the study of Europeans in Australia', Teaching History, 15, 1981.
14. (With J. Wilton), 'A lost history? The study of European migration to Australia', Australian Journal of Politics and History, XXXVII, 1981.
15. 'The point of Eco', Australian Book Review, 51, 1983.
16. 'Cop what lot? A study of Australian attitudes towards Italian mass migration in the 1950's', Studi Emigrazione, XX, 1983.
17. 'Italian history and Australian Universities', Risorgimento, 4, 1983.
18. 'Nazism, beast from the abyss or triumph of the nation?', Veritas, 5, 1984.
19. 'Conspiracy of the consuls? Official Italy and the Bonegilla riot of 1952', Historical Studies Australia and New Zealand, 22, 1987.
20. 'Official Italy re-discovers Australia', Affari Sociali Internazionali, XVI, 1988.
21. 'History, science and racism: an unholy trinity', The Australian Listener, 12, 15-21 October, 1988.
22. 'Did Joe Stalin really exist?', Historicus, May 1988.
23. 'Australia and assisted immigration from Britain 1945-54', Australian Journal of Politics and History, 34, 1988.
24. 'Bernardo Bertolucci, 1900, and the myth of Fascism', European History Quarterly, 19, 1989.
25. 'The Decennale of Late Modern European History I (LME I) or Teaching War and Revolution in East and West 1978-1988', Australian Historical Association Bulletin, 59-60, 1989.
26. 'Denis Mack Smith and the Third Italy', International History Review, XI, 1990.
27. 'Storia dell'immigrazione e storia nazionale: Australia/Immigration history and national history', Altreitalie, 4, 1990.
28. 'Italy, 1993: death of a regime?', Current Affairs Bulletin, 70, 1993.
29. 'The limits of Schindler's List', Current Affairs Bulletin, 70, 1994.
30. 'Renato Citarelli, Fascist Vice Consul in Perth: a documentary note', Papers in Labour History, 14, 1994.
31. 'The wars that never ended', The Australian, 6 May 1995.
32. 'I Bosworth, Emma Ciccotosto e Fremantle's Italy, o lo studio dell'italianità nell'Australia occidentale', Altreitalie, 13, 1995
33. 'L'affaire Demidenko-Darville', Ormond Papers, 12, 1995
34. 'Nations examine their past: a comparative analysis of the historiography of the "long" Second World War', The History Teacher, 29, 1996.
35. 'Tourist planning in Fascist Italy and the limits of a totalitarian culture', Contemporary European History, 6, 1997.
36. 'On re-reading Gibbon: a love story', Bulletin of the Australian Historical Association, 84, 1997.
37. 'The Touring Club Italiano and the nationalization of the Italian bourgeoisie', European History Quarterly, 27, 1997.
38. 'Death of a First Year course', Campus Review, 11 June 1997.
39. 'Writing a history of modern Italy as an Australian', Convivio, 3, 1997.
40. 'Il caso dell'Italia', Prometeo, 16, September 1998
41. 'Explaining "Auschwitz" after the end of history: the Italian case', History and Theory, 38, 1999.
42. 'Venice between Fascism and international tourism 1911-45', Modern Italy, 4, 1999.
43. 'The Balkans Tragedy', West Australian, 24 April 1999.
44. 'Fascism after the end of history: an introduction', The European Legacy, 4, i, 1999 (I was the guest editor for this issue of the journal).
45. 'Two conferences, two continents and a question', Dialogue, 18, 1999.
46. 'Il Duce, after death', The Australian's Book Review, August 1999.
47. 'Per necessità famigliare: hypocrisy and corruption in Fascist Italy', European History Quarterly, 30, 2000.
48. ‘Shoah business: una storia’, Storica, V, 2000.
49. ‘Delusions of the Sawdust Caesar’, BBC History Magazine, 3, iv, 2002.
50. ‘Imagining Mussolini with advantages: the case of Edgardo Sulis’, European History Quarterly, 32, iv, 2002.
51. ‘Benito Mussolini: dictator’, Historically Speaking, IV, v, June 2003.
52. 'Mussolini, Mussolini and me', Bulletin of the Australian Historical Association, 96, June 2003.
53. 'Biography in modern Italian studies' (discussion with C. Angier, C. Duggan and M. Gilbert), Modern Italy, 8, ii, 2003.
54. ‘War, totalitarianism and “deep belief” in Fascist Italy 1935-1943’, European History Quarterly, 34, iv, 2004.
55. ‘Everyday Mussolinism: friends, family, locality and violence in Fascist Italy’, Contemporary European History, XIV, i, 2005.
56. ‘Coming to terms with Fascism in Italy’, History Today, 55, xi, 2005.
57. 'The Italian Novecento and its historians’, Historical Journal, 49, i, 2006.
58. 'A country split in two? Contemporary Italy and its usable pasts', History Compass, 4, August 2006 (web access at 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00356.x).
59. ‘Doing European history from Australia: an idiosyncratic historian’s journey’, New Critic (web access at www.ias.uwa.edu.au/the_new_critic), 2007.
60. ‘The killing of histories’, Australian Financial Review, 25 January 2007.
61. ‘Benito Mussolini: bad guy on the international block?’ Contemporary European History, 18, i, 2009.
62. ‘Permanent decline and fall or imaginable resurrection? The fate of History at UWA as viewed from the edge of retirement’, The New Critic, 11, March 2009 (web access at www.ias.uwa.edu.au/the_new_critic).
63. ‘Mussolini, template of the modern dictator’ Newcastle Herald, 13 March 2010.
64. ‘L‘Anno Santo Holy Year in Fascist Italy 1933-4?’ European History Quarterly, 40, iii, 2010.
65. ‘Obituary for Roger N.L. Absalom’, Modern Italy, 15, ii, 2010.
66. ‘The Rome Olympics of August-September 1960’ History Today, 60, viii, August 2010.
67. ‘From where I sit: to get in, MBA is the master key’, Times Higher Education, 26 August 2010.
68. ‘The Canon: Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms’, Times Higher Education, 16 September 2010.
69. 'Mussolini frustrated', BBC History Magazine, 11, x, October 2010 (an edited version was re-published in BBC Knowledge, 15, January-February 2011 under the title ‘Mussolini: the lover and the lout’; an Italian version was published in March 2011).
70. ‘Rome and its histories: a view from Australia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 56, iv, 2010.
71. ‘From where I sit: loyalty tests’, Times Higher Education, online http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=414714&c=2, 24 December 2010.
72. ‘From where I sit: Fine words and a handful of dust’, Times Higher Education, 3 March 2011.
73. ‘Rome’s monumentissimo’, History Today, 61, vi, June 2011.
74. ‘From where I sit - Bowl out the “Measurers”', Times Higher Education, 23 June 2011.
75. ‘From where I sit: To the Collaborators the spoils’, Times Higher Education, 4 August 2011.
76. ‘From where I sit: In praise of undergraduates’, Times Higher Education, 18 August 2011.
77. ‘From where I sit: Time to stop “spruiking” PhDs’, Times Higher Education, 15 September 2011 (reprinted by request Campus Review, 30 September 2011).
78. ‘A Swan Song for the humanities’, Campus Review, 30 September 2011.
79. ‘From where I sit: Measured withdrawal’, Times Higher Education, 6 October 2011.
80. ‘The Second World Wars and their clouded memories’, History Australia, 8, iii, 2011.
81. ‘In the city of singing trams’, Inside story: current affairs and culture from Australia and beyond (on line journal at inside.org.au), 12 February 2012.
82. 'History, heritage and the ageing dictator', Inside story: current affairs and culture from Australia and beyond (on line journal at inside.org.au), 31 October 2013.
83. ‘The fog of war: Venice under siege’, History Today, 64, i, January 2014.
84. ‘Venice: washed by many past, Inside story: current affairs and culture from Australia and beyond, found at http://inside.org.au/venice-washed-by-many-pasts/.
85. ‘Fascismo e violenza, un binomio inscindibile?’, Il Bo, 15 June 2015.
86. ‘Mussolini: the pain behind the pleasure’, History Today, February 2017.
87. ‘The odd couple: Ernest Hardy and Frederick Rolfe “Baron Corvo”’, Jesus College Record, 2016.
88. ‘The limitations of Fascist totalitarianism’, (translated into Russian for) Bereginya, 777, 34, I, 2016.
Other Publications:
Over the years I have also done a considerable amount of script-writing for the ABC both in their educational section and, more generally, for their Features and Drama department. My best-known programme was a seven-part study of pre-1914 Europe which went to air in 1977 under the title 'Europe before the lamps went out'. It was repeated on a number of occasions. A programme on Gramsci was produced in 1985, and two on Carlo Ginzburg in 1988. In that same year I scripted 'Munich 1938: The Reprieve' and 'Kristallnacht and the Nazi Revolution' which went to air in November 1988. I have also participated on many occasions in the programmes of the ABC's Social History unit and on such programmes as 'Ockham's Razor'. One instance was in 1997 when I spoke on 'History, the nation and the pasts'. In 1999, I did interviews during the Balkan crisis for the ABC, commercial and ethnic radio as well as being interviewed on Manning Clark for a social history programme. I also spoke about Benigni's film La vita è bella. Some summary of my reputation in Italy at that time can be found in E. Serra, 'Richard J.B. Bosworth e l'Italia', Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, LXVII, 2000, pp. 307-313. In March 2002 I appeared in panel discussions about my biography of Mussolini for the digital TV programme ‘Relax with a book’ and on the BBC flagship cultural programme ‘Start the Week’ with Jeremy Paxman. My colleagues in that instance were Mario Vargas Llosa, John Nott and Rowena Young. In April 2002, I did a lengthy interview with Philip Adams on ABC ‘Late Night Live’ again about my biography of Mussolini and its early reception. On 29 July 2002 (for Mussolini’s birthday) I was interviewed for RAI Trieste. On 28 October 2002 I was interviewed both by BBC World Service and Radio 4 about Mussolini as dictator. In September 2002, I gave a long interview to Bill Bunbury of the ABC radio programme Hindsight. He worked the material into an hour-long programme about Fascism that went to air on 1 December 2002. It was re-played in December 2008. My winning of the WA Premier's prizes in June 2003 also entailed a number of resultant press appearances, as did the appearance of the translation into Spanish (November, 2003) and Italian (May, 2004) of the biography (I was in Spain and Italy for the launching periods). In May 2005 I was interviewed for the Radio National programme ‘The Europeans’ about Italian reactions to the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. In August 2005, I was again interviewed by RAI Trieste, this time about the impact of my biography of Mussolini in Italy and elsewhere. In February 2006 I appeared again on the ABC’s Late Night Live to discuss life under the Fascist dictatorship and that month I also spoke in the Perspective slot before the news on ‘Avoiding Hitler’s ghost’. In July 2006 I was interview by ABC radio Sydney on the question of the efficiency of Mussolini’s dictatorship. In March 2007, it was the turn of Irish Radio Newstalk 106 in Dublin. With them I participated in a panel of four in an hour-long debate on the nature of Mussolini’s regime. In January 2008, I did an interview with Reuters (Rome) on the possible historical reflexes of the then Italian political situation. On 2 May 2008, an article in the London Guardian by Tobias Jones on the return of Fascism in Italy included material from an interview with me. On 24 September 2008, my letter to the editor of the Australian decrying the absurd neo-con concept of ‘culture wars’ was published in Mr. Murdoch’s paper. On 30 October 2009 the Australian published my letter comparing the ALP’s ‘Indonesian solution’ with that of Berlusconi in Libya. In November 2009, I was interviewed by Sophie Sunderland of STUDYSmarter in Student Services at UWA in order to contribute to a website directed at improving student writing on the campus.
In 2010, actor Gary Oldman, the villain of the piece, was introduced into the Hollywood film, The Book of Eli, reading a copy of my biography of Mussolini. Quizzed on the web (video.about.com/movies/Gary-Oldman-Book of Eli.htm), Oldman explained ‘choosing Mussolini was our way of winking a little bit. It’s a bit of whimsy. And beyond that, I think the foreign press wanted some deep answer about why Mussolini, what it must mean. But it was I wear black, I had the boots, and I slicked my hair back, you know? So you go for Mussolini’. Alas for authorial ambition!
In July 2010, I did an extended interview with the BBC History Magazine in regard to my article on ‘Frustrating Mussolini’. The interview was then podcast in the BBCHM series. On 12 August 2010, the Times Higher Education published a brief comment from me on Joe Maiolo’s Cry Havoc: the arms race and the Second World War 1931-41 (London: John Murray, 2009) in its column ‘What are we reading?’ On 23 September 2010, my comment was about Sheila Fitzpatrick’s My father’s daughter: memories of an Australian childhood (Melbourne University Press, 2010). On 16 June 2011 I focused on The Cambridge Companion to Cricket (eds. Anthony Bateman and Jeffrey Hill (Cambridge University Press, 2011). On 30 June the THE had my brief comment on Mimmo Franzinelli’s Autopsia di un falso (Bollati Boringhieri, 2011). On 1 December, 2011, I commented on Sarah Foot, Athelstan: the first king of England (Yale University Press, 2011). On 2 July 2015, my comment was on Simon Levis Sullam’s I carnefici italiani: scene dal genocidio degli ebrei 1943-1945 (Feltrinelli, 2015). On 3 September that year, it dealt with Mimmo Franzinelli, L’arma segreta del Duce: la vera storia del Carteggio Churchill-Mussolini (Milan: Rizzoli, 2015).
I did a screen commentary in Vanessa Roghi, Mussolini: the story of a personality cult (2011), a 3 part documentary that was a result of the combined British-Australian research grant on the Cult of the Duce.
On 16 March 2012, the TLS published my letter on inaccuracies in a review by John Gooch about Mussolini’s marital arrangements.
In June 2012 I was interviewed about fascism by Dr. Georg Schedereit, a journalist from Merano in Italy in regard to a 9 part radio programme he was preparing there.
In December 2013, I acted as one of the Times Higher Education commentators on ‘books of the year’.
In January 2014, I was interviewed in Oxford about ‘Mussolini’s Second World War’ by Bonnie Flaws of Stephen David Entertainment of New York; they were preparing a documentary on the war.
In February 2014, I was interviewed in Oxford by Akachi Odoemene, a Global Leaders Fellow at the Global Economic Governance (GEG) programme, University College on the current state of global historiography.
In November 2014, I was interviewed by Philip Adams for ABC Radio Lateline on ‘Dictators’.
In April 2015, I did a filmed interview with Josh Whitehead of World Media for a documentary he was doing on Benito Mussolini.
In April 2015, I was interviewed by Samantha Brown of Boundless Productions for a TV programme on railways. The topic was the place of the city of Trento and its surrounds in their history.
I provided the detail for the London Times obituary of Christopher Duggan, published on 25 November 2015. I was then a eulogist at his memorial service at All Souls College on 12 December.
In April 2016 I was interviewed by Patrick Rina of the Merano office of Austrian TV ORF about the nature of Fascism.
On 1 December 2016 I was one of a number of historians interviewed by Isabel Best on ‘Should we even go there? Historians on comparing fascism to Trumpism’.
In March 2017 I was interviewed for Newstalk (Dublin) about my new book on Claretta Petacci.
13 March 2017, Claretta: Mussolini’s last lover was judged ‘Book of the Week’ by The Week.
Reviews:
Over the years I have written many reviews for a large variety of journals (I average some five per year and I review books in English, Italian and, occasionally, French). The journals include Journal of Modern History, European History Quarterly, International History Review, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of Religious History, Australian Journal of Politics and History, English Historical Review, Historical Journal, German History, Australian Historical Studies, Journal of the Australian War Memorial, Journal of the History of European Ideas, Labour History, Studies in Western Australian History, The European Legacy, Journal of Australian Studies, American Historical Review, Modern Italy, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, War in History, Journal of Japanese Studies, The Historian, The Times Higher Education, History Today, Continuity and Change.
Reviews since 1993:
1. H. Lehmann and J.J. Sheehan, An interrupted past: German-speaking refugee historians in the United States after 1933, Cambridge UP, 1991, German History, 11, 1993, pp. 259-260.
2. R. Douglas, Between the wars 1919-1939: the cartoonists' vision, Routledge, London, 1992, International History
