entiment of nationalism (Ball & Dagger, 1991, pp. 184-5).
In Mussolini's hands, nationalism was transmuted into the Fascist Party: "The aim of the Fascist party, then, was to bind the Italian people together, to overcome the divisions that weakened their country" (Ball & Dagger, 1991, p. 184). Coming to power in 1922, Mussolini essentially made Italy into a one-party state and engaged in military and industrial expansionism that would support the legitimacy and strength of his ultranationalism. Although Mussolini's intention appears to have been to position Italy at the center of a new Roman Empire, notably through the doctrine of Romanita, which drew parallels between the Roman Republic and the liberal Italian state on one hand, and between the Roman Empire and Mussolini's regime on the other (Visser, 1992), the inchoate and corrupt political environment of the country in general and Italy's early defeat in World War II in particular overtook the grand schemes. In 1945, at the close of the war, Mussolini and his mistress were hanged by a mob in Rome.
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