The Futile Pursuit of Power: Why Mussolini Executed his Son-in-Law

Italian history is not widely read but the period under Mussolini's shadow is both interesting and relevant to understanding the wheeling and dealings of the 1930s and into WWII. Through sheer nepotism Galeazzo Ciano married Mussolini's daughter and became Italy's Foreign Secretary, the youngest in Europe and at first scorned at home and abroad.

There are many salacious stories of their open marriage and promiscuity, but the focus is Ciano's political life as a man regarded as second only t...