The author's attempts to justify those Mitford sisters and brother Tom who were
attracted by fascism are disingenuous. We are never prepared psychologically to understand Diana's
infatuation with Oswald Mosely, the British Fascist, nothing in the book prepares us for this "great
love story," between the gorgeous Diana and the hateful, rabble rousing jack booted Mosely. Despite
the author's incredible claim that Diana's imprisonment by the British authorities during the war
was worse than a German concentration camp, Diana was living at the Ritz compared to the Jews in the
camps, those she and her dear husband would have had exterminated. Beautiful Diana was either dim
witted or deluded, or both. The claim that all their fascism was an effort to fight Stalin's
communism is bogus. All the sisters had courage, but in them it is less a virtue than a matter of
believing that they own the world and can do anything in it, so they will.

Jessica, awash in
doctrinaire socialism, and naive when it came to communism, comes off best as a human being capable
of compassion, but no thanks to the author who regards her with a jaundiced eye. Jessica (or Decca)
had a strong sense of social justice and produced excellent books and lived a productive life as a
muckraking journalist. She alone does not seem to have been deluded by the family myths that witty
sister Nancy created in her charming novels. The author clearly has less tolerance for Jessica,she
devotes pages of disapproval to her, imagine, she ran away with a Socialist Society boy - tut tut
tut - a black sheep cousin of Churchill - and thereby caused her family such pain and embarassament.
She is the object of the author's primary disapproval, as oppossed to the deluded Diana or Unity.
Jessica, or Decca as she is called her, committed the unpardonable crim of concern for unwashed
humanity. The beautiful fascist Diana, and the spunky Hitler worshipping Unity, who were prepared
to turn their country and the world over to Hitler, come off as dear little madcaps. Nancy,who had a
natural sense of decency, was the wittiest and most charming of all the sisters, as evidenced in her
delightful novels, but despite her personal qualities, she remains a minor figure in literature, no
matter how one tries to puff up her reputation with PBS miniseries. She is not even a close runner
up to her good friend Evelyn Waugh. He was a self satisfied bigot, a reactionary snob, but
nevertheless a great writer.

This biographer does not see that the roots of this family's
ideological disease were planted by the ever so adorable and eccentric "farve" - the father who
hated all foreigners, and Sydney, the mother whose cozy country house snobbery made her children
feel that they deserved all the goodies that life offered. Fascism must have seemed one fine way to
protect their privilaged lives during the Great Depression, or if you prefer, my subtitle for this
book,"High Life In The Big Slump."

The author would have us regard her subjects beliefs as a form
of British upper class eccentricity, rather than what it was; callous, vicious, and heartless; a
lack of empathy for others that grows tiresome. For most of the Mitfords it was more fun to shock
the middle class than to think through their beliefs and actions, and honestly examine the world
they lived in. No, they were not responsible for Hitler, but they were part of the environment, like
the Cliveden House set and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that helped make the death camps
possible, either through indifference,ignorance, or loathing for those who "are not out kind".

When you cannot trust the author's point of view, or lack thereof, or her sense of history, how
can you trust anything about her book? I felt a bit like Papa Mitford, wanting to banish the book
by flinging it into the ancestral fireplace and shouting, "Sewer!". It is unusual these days to read
such slavishly uncritical work, a product of the author identifying too closely with her subjects
and attempting to justify their lives, without really coming to understand them, their strengths and
their great weaknesses, and placing them in some kind of social and psychological context. Ms.
Lovell is so determined to be fair to her subjects that she is unfair to her readers and to history.
A poor historian, a good gossip, and a disgraceful thinker. Reader, pass this one by.

This book should be
required reading for College students
to understand recent history.

As Mary Lovell introduces
her book she points out that the
subjects are probably known to all of us older than 50,but
to
the younger majority this is an unexplored field.

In the book,if nothing else a delightful
read,she shows her skill
with superbly researched documented facts,yet at the same time
making
a reader relive the era.The insight into Jessica's
life (Decca) when she becomes American is
masterful,and is a brilliant look at the difference between 2 countries separated
by a common
language!

The tone is slavishly [worshipful]-- one really can forgive the posh for anything: they're just
sooo beautiful and charming. Her delight in conferring with the Duchess of Devonshire is merely
pathetic, but her apologia for the behavior of the Mosely's is purely bizarre. Yes, facist black
shirts are slightly de trop, but gosh Diana's eyes were very blue, and it's evident they were ever
so much in love. Creepy.

Although a have a PC knee-jerk discomfort with her attacks on Jessica,
who really is something of a sacred cow, the author seems as unnessecarily vitriolic toward her as
she is gushy and forgiving to the Moseleys. Ditto the general prisms and prunes atitude toward the
gracious and familial, e.g., although several sisters Jessica and Nancy in adult life considered
their mother to have been distant and glacial, Lovell neverthe less insists they must be deluded.
After all, Lady Redesdale was such a lovely person, even if she continued to nurse an amusing
penchant for that nice Mr. Hitler throughout her life. But he had been so gracious when they visited
him in the 30's...all those lovely lunches. Ick.

On a more pedantic level, the book is
extraordinarily poorly edited. Events or personages will be mentioned in passing, and dropped until
they figure chronologically 30 pages on.

Hitler and Unity managed, in all, 140 get-togethers. She felt
so strongly in agreement with der Fuhrer that she wrote Churchill (a relative) to lay off his fierce
speeches in British Parliament attacking Adolph. In Germany she published a newspaper hate-article
denouncing all Jews. It endeared her to the Nazi party, as was Unity's intention.

When war broke
out with Germany, Unity was so upset with people misunderstanding her sweet petty-pie, that she
attempted suicide. She appears the most eccentric of the six clever, talented (four were writers,)
and beautiful sisters. Their collective politics, however, amounted to a bouillabaisse with fish
hooks in it.

Jessica became a Communist. For her outspoken Fascism, Diana was stuffed in jail.
Nancy (the eldest) and Jessica churned out best-selling novels; two of these appeared recently in TV
adaptations.

There are a generous 24 pages of black and white photographs included in the book.
Many of these are dour, especially considering that the sisters were known for their humour. Even
the family portrait (photo #24) is severe, and Decca (who later eloped) is an unhappy debutante in
her photo, #37.

Mary S. Lovell's splendid biography is the definitive saga of this famous family
that gripped the English nation for several decades sins and all.