Denis Mack Smith (March 3, 1920 – July 11, 2017)[2] was an English historian who specialized in the history of Italy from the Risorgimento onwards.
He is best known for his biographies of Garibaldi, Cavour and Mussolini, and for his single-volume Modern Italy: A Political History.
[5] Denis Mack Smith was born in Hampstead (north London),[2][6] the son of tax inspector Wilfrid Mack Smith (1891–1975) and Altiora Edith Gauntlett (1888–1969), and was educated at St Paul's Cathedral Choir School and Haileybury College, where Martin Wight was one of his tutors.
[4][7] He earned a degree in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and following his graduation, he was a fellow there for the next 15 years (1947–62).
[9] He belonged to the post-World War II generation of Cambridge historians, many based at Peterhouse, who learned to appreciate the primacy of documentary evidence.