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L'Esploratore del Duce: Le avventure di Giuseppe Tucci e la politica Italiana in Oriente da Mussolini a Andreotti; con il carteggio di Giulio Andreotti [The explorer of the Duce: The adventures of Giuseppe Tucci and Italian foreign policy in the Orient from Mussolini to Andreotti; with the correspondence of Giulio Andreotti]. By Enrica Garzilli . Rome : Memori-Asiatica Association , 2012. 2 vols., lii, 685 pp. and 726 pp. $90.00 (paper).
Book Reviews--Inner Asia
A biography of Giuseppe Tucci (1894-1984), the pioneering Tibetologist and Buddhologist whose body of work contributed to the shape and direction of several disciplines within Asian studies in the twentieth century, has long been a desideratum. This is not only on account of his influential contributions to Asian studies, but also because of the much debated--and still largely unresolved--issue of his collaboration with the fascist regime in Italy during the second quarter of the twentieth century, a period that saw Tucci's rapid ascendance in the ranks of Italian and international scholarship in concomitance with the consolidation of Mussolini's dictatorship. Unfortunately, the recent two-volume work by Enrica Garzilli does not fulfill this need, neither from the purely biographical perspective nor as an analysis of the importance of his political networking. This effort of almost 1,500 pages is at once prolix, contradictory, and fragmentary. It is confusingly laid out, repetitive, and in general contains much unsubstantiated data.
The book purports to delve specifically into Tucci's political connections, both during the fascist era, when Tucci, as the title proclaims, would have been "Mussolini's explorer," and during the period of the Italian Republic, when Tucci's politically powerful sponsor would have been Giulio Andreotti, the ubiquitous face of the conservative party of the Christian Democrats from the end of World War II until his death. However, by trying to focus on Tucci's political connections, the author neglects the weight and scholarly impact of his opus, his groundbreaking ideas and discoveries, and his new (to Italy at least)...