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order to get his protection. At least that was the outer image that had to be projected – to other men to get their respect, and to other women to attract them to the pack – but essen- tially it was a man's business in a man's world, establishing oneself as the undisputed lead- er, the one at the top of the food chain. How much of this self-con- structed narrative was fact and how much of it was fictional is the historian's job to try and un- cover. Sometimes it is the case that the persona takes over one's reality and becomes one's life, other times it might not neces- sarily be so. To my liking Mark Montebello does not challenge enough this process of myth- making of which Mintoff him- self was part-engineer. Men brag about the size of their pe- nises and about their conquests, yet the measure of whether such claims are true or not can- not lie on the recollections of people (mostly men, anyway) who were at the receiving end of those claims. An autobiography in itself has no particular claim to truth, especially if behind it is the ra- tionale that it is a testament for posterity. It could actually be another mythmaking exercise, of which our literature is not devoid (Guido de Marco's autobiogra- phy could have been easily ti- tled 'Me, Myself and I'). For all we know, Mintoff could have been a sex-beast in bed as much as a mediocre sod, who bragged more than he actually got. It's a question that unless hard ev- idence is provided for will re- main unanswered and its sole value – from a historian's view- point – is whether Mintoff had effectively engineered his narra- tive of masculinity or not. Apparently he did, and that many people were ready to dis- close what they 'knew' of it is testimony enough of its success. Times change and with them the narratives we tell ourselves. Today we'd rather extol the virtues of politicians who wear their (often fake) humility on their sleeves alongside their plastic-smile happy families. With these changes in narra- tive we also change the myths of 'great' men and so we trim, ex- punge, censor, deconstruct and reconstruct accordingly, for the myth to conform to our taste. That does not make them less myths than they always were. So nowadays we do not speak of Nerik Mizzi as a lazy lawyer with pro-fascist sympathies, but rather of a man who liked to gather around him willing listeners and instil in them na- tionalistic fervour. Borg Olivier was not a wom- anizer alcoholic but rather an aristocratic liberal. And Dom Mintoff was born a saviour and his whole life was one long trajectory towards Freedom Day in 1979. It is not an easy task for the historian to confront these myths and seek to discover the men (and women) behind them, to bare the contradictions, in- congruities, warts and all and bring the myth down to explore the actual men they were, their times, their environment, their cultures. It is what Mark Montebello tried to do. He put time, effort and scholarly virtue into such a daunting task. No work of history writing is ever definitive and Mark's is no exception, but it is a useful, studied provocation, an invita- tion to other historians to take the subject – hopefully from other angles, different perspec- tives – and engage with Mintoff and his times. 13 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 JULY 2021 OPINION How much of Dom Mintoff 's self-constructed narrative was fact and how much was fictional is the historian's job to try and uncover. So did Mark Montebello challenge enough this process of mythmaking of which Mintoff himself was part- engineer?