Book Talk: The Pope and Mussolini

David Kertzer ’69, Watson Institute Faculty Fellow; Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science; Professor of Anthropology and Italian studies. Join David Kertzer for a discussion of his 2015 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe. The book tells the gripping story of Pope Pius XI’s secret relations with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. This groundbreaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives, includes reports from Mussolini’s spies inside the highest levels of the Church and will forever change our understanding of the Vatican’s role in the rise of fascism in Europe.