5. Red Shirts and Black Shirts

Exploring charismatic nationalist leadership.

Francine Stock attempts to pin down the alluring yet elusive quality of charisma.

In the 1860s, Giuseppe Garibaldi was the most famous man in Europe. A correspondent from the London Times encountered him at a public rally in Palermo, and described how men threw themselves forward to touch the hem of his garment, while mothers offered their babies up to be blessed by him.

With the help of historian Professor Lucy Riall, Francine explores the creation of the charismatic national commander who would lead the Risorgimento and establish Rome as the capital of a newly united Italy. She hears about his natural charm, his physical appearance and clothes, but also about his protean ability to be different things to different people and to exploit new technology to spread his image and his message.

Francine then moves on to a more recent example of radical leadership. She hears from the writer and broadcaster, Abdel Bari Atwan, about his secret visit to Osma Bin Laden in the Tora Bora caves of Afghanistan and about how, in turn, the publicity machine of Al Quaeda used contemporary new technology to advance their cause.

Finally, Francine investigates the dangers of this type of nationalist leadership, and hears from Lucy Riall about how Garibaldi's Red Shirts were to be a direct inspiration for the Black Shirts of Mussolini.

Readings by Simon Russell Beale.

Producer: Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2015.