Alfredo Bonadeo was born in Volpedo, Italy. He emigrated to the United States in 1952 where he first took an MBA and later a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1969 he married Barbara Bates, and together they settled in Santa Barbara where he was Professor of Italian Language and Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1969-1995). He died in 2011. He has published: Corruption, Conflict, and Power in the Works and Times of Niccolo Machiavelli; D'Annunzio and the Great War; Mark of the Beast: Death and Degradation in the Literature of the Great War; Martial Valor from Beowulf to Vietnam.