The Sack of Rome

Award-winning author Alexander Stille has been called "one of the best English-language writers on Italy" by the New York Times Book Review, and in The Sack of Rome he sets out to answer the question: What happens when vast wealth, a virtual media monopoly, and acute shamelessness combine in one man? Many are the crimes of Silvio Berlusconi, Stille argues, and, with deft analysis, he weaves them into a single mesmerizing chronicle—an epic saga of rank criminality, cronyism, and self-dealing at the highest levels of power.A frightening case study . . . that has plenty of bearing on our own media-driven politics. (BusinessWeek)

With a sharp knife and a clear eye, Stille . . . has dissected the remarkable, revolting story of the rise of the former (and future?) prime minister of Italy, and the political-cultural revolution that he has fathered, for good and mostly for bad. . . . Fascinating. (Los Angeles Times)

This riveting, unsparing biography is not merely an exposT of Berlusconi but a vivid lesson in how, under the right conditions, any man of wealth and few scruples can manipulate an entire nation. (Chicago Tribune)
Alexander Stille is the author of The Future of the Past, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, and Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.