Book excerpt: Reveals changes in Ezra Pound's prose writing resulting from his excitement over Mussolini's use of Italian cultural heritage to build and promote the modern Fascist state. Drawing on unpublished archival material and untranslated periodical contributions, the author delves into the vexing work of perhaps the most famous, certainly the most notorious, American in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s, providing fresh understanding of Fascist deployment of art, architecture, blockbuster exhibitions, music, archaeological projects, urban design,a nd literature. Pound's prose writings of this period cement a "directive" approach - declaiming his views with an authority that shuts down disagreement. This work reveals the importance of this approach to his larger artistic mission.