In this deeply moving, beautifully told history, biographer and historian Moorehead shares the story of northern Italian resistance during WWII, focusing on the anti-Fascists of Turin… [A] superb and significant chronicle.
Italy often gets short shrift in popular English-language histories about World War II, with the fighting in the country shrugged off as a sideshow to the Battle of Britain and the invasion of France. Caroline Moorehead takes advantage of this relative gap in the literature with the moving A House in the Mountains.
Riveting…. The narrative is told with such verve that I frequently had goosebumps.
Important, meticulously researched… A House in the Mountains tells the untold story of the women of the Italian resistance…. Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope, Ms. Moorehead’s book charts the experiences of these women in the wider context of the war in Italy.
Gripping and important…. Moorehead delicately unravels and interweaves the personal stories of several key women in the Italian resistance… giving us a compelling narrative that vividly describes who these women were and what they did for their country…. A House in the Mountains is something of a manifesto against neutrality, and a showcase of the boundless power of female passion. The women of the resistance still have so much to teach us today.
11/18/2019
Historian Moorehead (A Bold and Dangerous Family) concludes her Resistance Quartet with an overly dense account of the role Italian partisans, many of them women, played in helping the Allies win WWII. Contending that the story of female resistance fighters has long been neglected, Moorehead focuses on four women from the Piedmont region and begins their story in 1943, when the sudden overthrow of Benito Mussolini’s government in Rome led to tightened German control over Northern Italy and fomented rebellion in the region. “Fascism had trapped them in domesticity and segregation,” Moorehead writes of women who joined the resistance as couriers, lookouts, and weapons smugglers, but their new lives gave them “the chance to decide their own fates.” Ada Gobetti held secret meetings at her house in Turin and helped to establish contacts between Italian Resistance leaders and French and British military officials. Bianca Serra organized antifascist action committees in the city’s factories and edited underground newspapers. Female partisans hoped to achieve a long list of reforms in postwar Italy, including paid maternity leave and equal wages, but their hopes were mainly dashed, according to Moorehead. She uncovers many fascinating stories, but she bogs the narrative down with secondary characters and accounts of well-known events. History buffs will wish this promising account had a sharper focus. (Jan.)
Important, meticulously researched… A House in the Mountains tells the untold story of the women of the Italian resistance…. Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope, Ms. Moorehead’s book charts the experiences of these women in the wider context of the war in Italy.” — Wall Street Journal
“The moving finale of a quartet of books on resistant to fascism.... Ms. Moorehead conveys the terror with understated power; she is equally good at conjuring the blurred morality of civil conflict.” — The Economist
“Riveting…. The narrative is told with such verve that I frequently had goosebumps.” — The Guardian
“Gripping and important…. Moorehead delicately unravels and interweaves the personal stories of several key women in the Italian resistance… giving us a compelling narrative that vividly describes who these women were and what they did for their country…. A House in the Mountains is something of a manifesto against neutrality, and a showcase of the boundless power of female passion. The women of the resistance still have so much to teach us today.” — AirMail
“Gripping… exhaustively researched… Moorehead artfully builds the tension as liberation approaches and partisans make a desperate last stand.” — Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A highly satisfying conclusion to the author’s series. Excellent, well-presented evidence of the incalculable strengths and abilities of women to create and run a country.” — Kirkus, starred review
“In this deeply moving, beautifully told history, biographer and historian Moorehead shares the story of northern Italian resistance during WWII, focusing on the anti-Fascists of Turin… [A] superb and significant chronicle.” — Booklist, starred review
“Moorehead, in the final book of her “Resistance Quartet” series, tells the incredible story of the stafetta, women of the Italian resistance…. A fine history.” — Library Journal, starred review
“Italy often gets short shrift in popular English-language histories about World War II, with the fighting in the country shrugged off as a sideshow to the Battle of Britain and the invasion of France. Caroline Moorehead takes advantage of this relative gap in the literature with the moving A House in the Mountains.” — The Oregonian
“Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance…. [An] excellent book.” — The Sunday Times
Important, meticulously researched… A House in the Mountains tells the untold story of the women of the Italian resistance…. Dramatic, heartbreaking and sweeping in scope, Ms. Moorehead’s book charts the experiences of these women in the wider context of the war in Italy.
Moorehead paints a wonderfully vivid and moving portrait of the women of the Italian Resistance…. [An] excellent book.
The moving finale of a quartet of books on resistant to fascism.... Ms. Moorehead conveys the terror with understated power; she is equally good at conjuring the blurred morality of civil conflict.
Gripping… exhaustively researched… Moorehead artfully builds the tension as liberation approaches and partisans make a desperate last stand.
★ 12/01/2019
In the months between the fall of Mussolini's Fascist government in 1943 and the Allied victory in 1945, the people of Turin and the Italian Piedmont suffered tremendously. Caught between invading Germans, Fascist groups reasserting control, and the Allied bombing campaign, thousands of Italians took to the hills to survive. Moorehead (A Bold and Dangerous Family), in the final book of her "Resistance Quartet" series tells the incredible story of the stafetta, women of the Italian resistance. The staffetta worked a variety of jobs within the partisan groups; transporting explosives and weapons and serving as lookouts as well as mending clothes and cooking for fighters. Many women also rose into the leadership ranks of the partisans. Despite the sacrifices many of these women made, including with their lives, it was decades before they received the recognition they deserved as combatants and for the role they played in liberating Italy from Fascist and Nazi rule. Based on extensive archival research, this is a fine history that centers women in the story of the Italian resistance. VERDICT Recommended for those interested in World War II and women's history.—Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH
★ 2019-09-24
In the final volume of the Resistance Quartet, Moorehead (A Bold and Dangerous Family, 2017) continues her work exalting the women of World War II who saved their countries from fascism.
The author now turns to the Piedmont region of Northern Italy and the city of Turin, which was a hotbed of fascism but also the epicenter of the resistance. Moorehead relies heavily on the diaries of participant Ada Gobetti, who, along with Bianca Serra, Frida Malan, and Silvia Pons, formed a core group within the thousands of women who drove the resistance from 1943 to 1945. Under 20 years of Mussolini's rule, women were expected to be submissive and produce children. "One of the key beliefs in Fascist ideology," writes the author, "was that men and women were inherently different." But being ignored as insignificant made them perfect couriers and concealers of messages, escapees, and arms. These women, who produced underground newspapers, led strikes, and transported escapees, were crucial to the resistance, and Moorehead clearly delineates their determination and heroism throughout the exciting narrative. After Mussolini's fall, Italy secured an armistice with the Allies, but the Germans moved in to take over the country. Thus, a multifaceted war began, but was it civil war, a war of liberation, or a class war? With multiple governments and armies, it was chaotic. The Italian army had little leadership, and most of the soldiers abandoned their posts. With more than 100,000 disbanded soldiers, it fell to the women to help. In the Piedmont hills, a dozen separate groups eventually winnowed down to a six-party coalition while help from the Allies was difficult to find. Turin's Liberation Day, April 26, 1945, was organized by the women of the resistance and featured a complete stoppage of factories, trams, courts, and shops. The partisan groups, men and women, quickly established government offices and handled expected reprisals. This is a highly satisfying conclusion to the author's series.
Excellent, well-presented evidence of the incalculable strengths and abilities of women to create and run a country.
