This is an important reassessment of British and Italian grand strategies during the First World War. Stefano Marcuzzi sheds new light on a hitherto overlooked but central aspect of Britain and Italy's war experiences: the uneasy and only partial overlap between Britain's strategy for imperial defence and Italy's ambition for imperial expansion. Taking Anglo-Italian bilateral relations as a special lens through which to understand the workings of the Entente in World War I, he reveals how the ups-and-downs of that relationship influenced and shaped Allied grand strategy. Marcuzzi considers three main issues – war aims, war strategy and peace-making – and examines how, under the pressure of divergent interests and wartime events, the Anglo-Italian 'traditional friendship' turned increasingly into competition by the end of the war, casting a shadow on Anglo-Italian relations both at the Peace Conference and in the interwar period.

First published in 1967, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism is essentially the political history of Italy, concerned with both domestic and foreign policy and their interaction. Designed in chronological order, the book is divided into four parts: the consolidation of Italy after its unification; the stresses and strains the country went through; the expansion of liberalism; and the onset and development of fascism. This seminal book on the history of Italy will be of interest to students of history and political science.