The Pike: Gabriele d’Annunzio, Poet, Seducer and Preacher of War

WINNER OF THE 2013 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION, THE 2013 DUFF COOPER PRIZE, THE POLITICAL BOOK AWARDS POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR 2014 AND THE 2013 COSTA BOOK AWARDS BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEARThe story of Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet, daredevil – and Fascist.In September 1919 Gabriele D’Annunzio, successful poet, dramatist and occasional politician with an innate flair for the melodramatic, declared himself the Commandante of the city of Fiume in modern day Croatia. He intended to establish the utopian modern state upon his muddled fascist and artistic ideals and create a social paradigm for the rest of the world. It was a fittingly dramatic pinnacle to a career that…