Books by Mark Gilbert
” Though this is undoubtedly an important academic work, it doesn’t necessarily read like one. That is quite an achievement, given that it’s dealing with very dense material. Encompassing the various acronyms coming out of the post-war Italian left, distinguishing between them and conveying their shades of pink to the general reader, is a definite challenge. But Mark Gilbert really rises to it. He starts with a very lucid, clear, surprising, and counter-intuitive argument, and sticks to it throughout. Though his case pounds along with sustained force, it is never dull or repetitive or anything other than keenly coherent. Reading Italy Reborn is not like being stuck with an obsessive or a preacher. Rather this is an ideal tutorial, a lesson very well and entertainingly taught. I found it explained so much that I personally had never quite got to grips with about Italy before.” Read more...
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize
Minoo Dinshaw, Biographer
Interviews where books by Mark Gilbert were recommended
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1
Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy
by Mark Gilbert -
2
Catland: Feline Enchantment and the Making of the Modern World
by Kathryn Hughes -
3
The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham
by Lucy Hughes-Hallett -
4
Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750
by Noel Malcolm -
5
Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin
by Sue Prideaux -
6
Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin, and the Battle Between Science and Religion
by Michael Taylor
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize, recommended by Minoo Dinshaw
The Best Nonfiction Books: The 2025 Duff Cooper Prize, recommended by Minoo Dinshaw
It’s a nonfiction book prize that values “style, rigour, argument, meatiness, readability, freshness, oddity and individuality,” says Minoo Dinshaw, author of Friends in Youth and one of this year’s judges. He introduces the six brilliant books that made the shortlist of this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, from the history of post-World War II Italy to the disputes caused by the discovery of dinosaur fossils.
