R. J. B. Bosworth

In this book, Bosworth connects ancient and modern Rome into an account of the city through the centuries, examining its architecture and culture. He begins with Napoleonic occupation of Rome at the beginning of the 19th century, although at times he refers to history preceding the Napoleonic occupation. Bosworth contrasts the resulting Enlightenment ideals with competing worldviews and describes their continuing conflict. Thus, Bosworth incorporates examination of different periods into study of modern Rome. He also regularly includes maps and concentrates on different zones of the city, painting a picture of the city as it now stands.

Here, Bosworth examines the rise and fall of Fascist Italy. He combines various perspectives, including the mocking comments of Italian civilians under Mussolini. Mussolini's Italy was awarded a 2005 West Australian Premier's non-fiction prize and the 2006 New South Wales Premier's general history prize. It has been referred to as "a powerful work of scholarship, beautifully written, which should be read by anyone interested in 20th-century Europe, or indeed the antecedents of modern-day Italy."

Promoted to professor of history at the University of Western Australia in 1987, Bosworth was head of department from 1988-90. In 2007, he began working part-time there and part-time at the University of Reading. In 2012, Bosworth became a senior research fellow in history at Jesus College, Oxford. He is known as an "eminent scholar of Italian Fascism."

Bosworth was deputy or acting director of the Frederick May Foundation for Italian Studies from 1981 to 1986. He also worked as a research fellow in the Humanities Research Centre of Australian National University in 1991, visiting overseas scholar at St John's College, Cambridge and visiting professor at various institutions. He is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Bosworth sets out to provide a fresh description of Venice, knowing that the task has been declared impossible. Most commentators focus on the Republic from its foundation in 421 to its destruction by Napoleon in 1979. Bosworth explores the sentiment surrounding Venice as "the most beautiful city in the world, but...also one of the saddest." He focuses on her 'modern histories', especially how Venice reacted to Italian ownership and how it in turn impacted the city. In chapter 3, he describes the devastating impact of the First World War on Venice, going on to consider "what Fascism did to Venice and what Venice did to Fascism."

Bosworth began his lecturing career in 1969 at the University of Sydney. He became a senior lecturer in 1974 and associate professor of history from 1981-1986.

Bosworth wrote his first book as part of a series - Topics in Modern History - seeking to assist high school and university teachers and students, providing a "guiding and stimulating" overview of Fascist Italy, rather than in-depth historical analysis. Noting that Fascist Italy has not garnered the attention of Nazi Germany, Bosworth makes clear his anti-Fascist tone from the beginning, aiming for "a more serious study of Italian Fascism than is usually given" by Anglo-Saxons 'misinterpreting and misunderstanding' Italian history. He presents Italy up to 1945 as pretending to be a Great Power in Europe, despite poor geography and resources, and argues that this pretence has taken its toll.

Richard James Boon Bosworth FAHA, FASSA (7 December 1943) is an Australian historian and author, and a leading expert on Benito Mussolini and Fascist Italy, having written extensively on both topics.

Richard James Boon Bosworth was born to Richard C.L. Bosworth - himself a professor of Chemistry - and Thelma H.E. Bosworth on 7 December 1943 in Sydney, New South Wales. Bosworth married Michal Gwyn Newell on 23 September 1965. They have two children: Edmund and Mary, the latter a professor of criminology at St. Cross College, Oxford. In the same year, Bosworth completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Sydney, graduating with first-class honours. In 1971, Bosworth earned a PhD at the University of Cambridge.

In his most recent biography, Bosworth recounts the affair between Claretta Petacci and Benito Mussolini which began in 1936, when Petacci was separated from her husband. Bosworth portrays her as an 'unremarkable' "airhead", who was "neither charismatic nor clever nor cultured", despite belonging to a "respectable, ambitious and deeply Catholic Roman bourgeois family." According to Bosworth, Petacci was supported in the affair by her family, who hoped to manipulate her for their own benefit.

In this biography, Bosworth concentrates less on Mussolini's personality than his political actions, leading to an "avowedly anti-Fascist study of the Duce." The book begins with Mussolini's final two years, then explains how he got there. Bosworth presents Mussolini as a "bully, coward, and a failure," who could not effectively modernise Italy, and who represented the Italy of his time. Bosworth particularly criticised Mussolini's leadership in the late 1930s and portrays him as more of a people-pleaser than an ideologue. He even controversially contends that Mussolini "might have entered history as a figure of some light and some darkness", had he retired in 1932.

Bosworth's characterisation as a weak dictator, focused on short-term consolidation of power and prestige, differs from other scholars' portrayals. The book opposes the view of contemporaries that Mussolini had determined radically new foreign policy by the mid-1920s, instead depicting him as "an impatient and impulsive but continually oscillating opportunist in international affairs," who maintained the foreign policy of his predecessors. By portraying Mussolini not within revolutionary traditions but as a man without strict ideological beliefs, Bosworth disagrees with MacGregor Knox - a leader scholar on Italy - and Renzo De Felice - a "central and controversial" scholar on Italian Fascism.