THE BOOK

Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock

“As an American living in the UK, I’ve long been curious about exactly how many countries my own country (as well as England and Italy) has invaded and been involved with militarily around the world. You’ll be astonished at the reach of each throughout the ages.”

Recreating their success with America Invades, Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock take another global tour, this time starting from Italy and exploring that country’s military involvements throughout the ancient and modern worlds. From the empire building of the Romans, through the globe-spanning Age of Exploration, to the multinational cooperation of NATO, Italy has conquered and explored countries as diverse and far-ranging as Cape Verde and Mongolia and Uruguay. With the additional guide of maps and photographs, the reader can visually follow the Italians as they conquer the world.The book also contains an excerpt from the never- before published An Adventure in 1914, written by Christopher Kelly’s maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Tileston Wells. Wells served as the American consul general to Romania each summer; and in the summer of 1914, as war exploded across Europe, he was there with his wife and two children.Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World, full of restless adventurers, canny generals, and the occasional scoundrel, is a fast-paced and compelling read, the perfect sequel to America Invades.

Christopher Kelly, the former chairman of Chyron Corporation, has had a lifelong passion for military history and is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Stuart Laycock has a degree in Classics from Cambridge University. He has authored or coauthored a number of books dealing with Roman Britain and its end, and also wrote All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To. He was a witness to Italian peacekeeping in Bosnia while on a humanitarian mission there.

Watch an exclusive interview with author Chris Kelly

The Eric Hoffer Award announces a small set of grand prize award finalists. This small list or “short list” of finalists is an honored distinction of its own and is announced publicly during the spring of each award year prior to the grand prize announcement.  We are happy to announce that Italy Invades was awarded the 2016 1st Runner up in the Legacy Non-Fiction category and its colorful book design was recognized as a distinguished Da Vinci Eye Finalist.

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