A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940 (New York Review Books Classics)

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Description

A harrowing account of life in Italy in the year leading up to World War II, to be had in the United States for the first time.

War in Italy in 1939 used to be in no way necessary, or even really helpful to the country. But in June 1940, Mussolini in any case declared war on Britain and France. The awful inevitability with which Italy stumbled its way into a war for which they were ill prepared and in large part unenthusiastic is documented here with grace and clarity by one of the vital twentieth century’s great diarists.

This diary, which has never been published and used to be recently found in Origo’s archives, is the sad and gripping account of the grim absurdities that Italy and the world underwent as war became increasingly more unavoidable. Iris Origo, British-born and living in Italy, used to be ideally placed to record the events: extremely engaged with the world around her, connected to people from all areas of society (from the peasants on her estate to the United States ambassador to Italy), she writes of the turmoil, the danger, and the dreadful bleakness of Italy in 1939-1940, as war went from a chance to a dreadful reality.

A Chill in the Air covers the beginning of a war whose catastrophic effects are documented in the bestselling War in Val D’Orcia.

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