Jasper Ridley's biographies tend to be well-researched, long, worthy and slightly turgid; you sometimes end up feeling that you have learned rather more about the subject than you really wanted to know. Garibaldi is of course an excellent subject, a man who seems immune (and that is rare) to the 20th-century industry of debunking famous men and so justifies a 700-page biography. His role in winning independence for Italy is undoubted, yet this book suggests that Garibaldi was not in fact a very good soldier - though always a brave one - and that he rather lacked political thinking power, especially when compared with the wily, sophisticated statesman Cavour. What he had, in abundance, was personal integrity and even nobility of character, as well as the ability to endure reverses and betrayals, yet come up undaunted and full of energy. As a "man of the people," simple and unaffected, as well as personally unambitious, he also had the capacity to make ordinary people follow him in a way more cultured Italian patriots could not.