Berlusconi: The Epic Story of the Billionaire Who Took Over Italy

by Alan Friedman

Overview

Before there was real estate tycoon cum President-Elect Donald J. Trump, there was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul turned prime minster who dominated Italian life for the past twenty years. In a candid, warts-and-all portrait of the leader who played hard in office and in private life. From the bunga-bunga parties to his most secret moments with world leaders, this biography is rich in anecdotes and revelations involving Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, and many others.

Berlusconi's incredible rise to power started from nothing. A self-created man, he was a cruise ship crooner as a young man, became a real estate tycoon in the '70s, started the first commercial television network in history, and turned AC Milan into a world-class soccer club. And that was all before he survived the squalid swampland of Italian politics to become prime minister who has not only served the longest in Italian history, but also has generated the most controversy of arguably any world leader today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316301992
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	10/20/2015
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Alan Friedman is a journalist, bestselling author, television personality and producer, and documentary maker who has spent the past 30 years as an award-winning correspondent and commentator with the Financial Times of London, the International Herald Tribune/New York Times, the Wall Street Journal Europe, and Italian television. Mr Friedman is also a former contributing editor at Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. He is presently an opinion columnist for Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper and Germany's Die Zeit.

Alan was awarded the British Press Award (the UK equivalent of the Pulitzer award) four times during his 14-year career with the Financial Times. He is the only American journalist to have received the Medal of Honor (1997) from the Italian Parliament and he has been awarded many other acknowledgements for his work on Italy and the global economy. In 2014 he was awarded the "Non-fiction Book of the Year" prize in the Premio Pavese (September 2014), the Premio Pannunzio for outstanding excellence in journalism (December 2014) and the "America Prize" in the USA-Italy Foundation's annual award ceremony in the Italian Parliament (October 2014).

Alan was born in New York City, educated at NYU (B.A. Politics and History), the London School of Economics (International Relations) and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (M.A. International Economics and Law). He is married and lives in Tuscany.

Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 The Natural-Born Seducer 9

Chapter 2 The Deal Maker 24

Chapter 3 The Media Mogul 44

Chapter 4 Apocalypse Now 62

Chapter 5 The Billionaire Prime Minister 82

Chapter 6 George Bush and the Attack on Saddam 104

Chapter 7 A Friend in the Kremlin 124

Chapter 8 Women! 138

Chapter 9 Bribery, Corruption, and Mafia 158

Chapter 10 Eat, Drink, and Kill 176

Chapter 11 International Intrigue 196

Chapter 12 Obama Steps In 219

Chapter 13 Guilty 238

Chapter 14 Endgame 253

Acknowledgments 277

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

"An entertaining and insightful portrait of the billionaire playboy politician who dominated Italian politics for two decades. Alan Friedman has once again written a timely and controversial book."—Lionel Barber, Editor, Financial Times

From the Publisher