The explosive story of a terrorist group, the Red Brigades, who brought Italy to a standstill in the 1970s.

*A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR*

'A compelling and sobering read' JOHN DICKIE
'Taut and gripping' TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOKS OF 2025
'Grimly absorbing' FINANCIAL TIMES

The explosive story of the terrorist group who brought Italy to a standstill in the 1970s.

In March 1978, the Red Brigades shocked the world by kidnapping former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in the heart of Rome. They held him hostage for fifty-five days before killing him and dumping his body in the boot of a car. But who were they? And what did they want?

In this gripping and explosive book, John Foot casts new light on the shadowy world of the Red Brigades, revealing how they became the most formidable left-wing terrorist organisation in post-war Western Europe. Through a campaign of murder, kidnap and intimidation, they brought Italy’s justice system to its knees and shook the nation’s political foundations – leaving behind a legacy of conspiracy and distrust that still lingers today.

"A sober, painstaking corrective to wild notions that have the group as the catspaw of the CIA, the Rothschilds or Italy’s secret services" - The Times

"Foot's magisterial account of Italy's communist radicals matches its detailed scholarship with gripping prose ... He gives an utterly fasincating insight into how these murderous purveyors of odious claptrap were allowed the clout they had. There is never an excuse for terrorism, which perhaps is the most important thing this superb book teaches us" - The Telegraph

"John Foot’s history of the Red Brigades is as comprehensive a study as you will find, and it should be the final one… Foot has carried out an immense amount of research and provides an extraordinary quantity of detail" - Literary Review

"A grimly absorbing history of the Red Brigades … In superbly researched pages he considers the hydra-headed conspiracy theories that surrounded the BR’s attempts to bring down the Italian state… As Foot points out in this excellent book, the story of the BR ultimately amounts to “a national tragedy"" - Financial Times

"Plenty of students are bolshy; few of them, luckily, graduate to robbing banks and killing their prime minister. Foot’s account of the Brigate Rosse, the communist radicals who terrorised 1970s Italy, sets its detailed scholarship in taut and gripping prose" - Telegraph, The Greatest Books of 2025

"A comprehensive account of the far-left radical organisation whose armed struggle haunted Italy throughout the 1970s and 1980s ... Foot narrates the history of the BR accessibly while avoiding a deep analysis of the political theories and ideology underpinning their actions, focusing instead on the lives of the protagonists" - Times Literary Supplement