Marinetti Dines with the High Command is a work that dramatizes the turbulent life and times of F. T. Marinetti, founder of Futurism, the first global art movement. Marinetti's artistic career raises enduring questions about art and politics because of his association with Fascism, and the second part of this work is an essay which explores the implications of this association. What makes this text unique is that it is the first work that assesses Marinetti's life in the context of a command performance he gave for the German High Command in January of 1934 - and the spectacular conclusion to that performance.

RICHARD CAVELL. Professor, Department of English, University of British Columbia. Expertise in Canadian cultural studies and cultural memory, Marshall McLuhan, and media theory, and a published playwright.

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Richard Cavell's performance piece on Marinetti - part drama, part spectacle, and part critical commentary - is one of the most acute texts on the role played by Marinetti - indeed, by Futurism itself - in the Fascist 1930s. The scene in which Marinetti recites his provocative "The Raid on Adrianople" at a dinner given in his honour by the German High Command (a true story!) shows that Marinetti was by no means a disciple of Mussolini but his very real enemy. Cavell's is a delightfully witty tour de force, but his is also a serious revisionary work. This is a brilliant and important book. - Marjorie Perloff, author of The Futurist Moment: Avant-Garde, Avant Guerre, and the Language of Rupture