Christopher Duggan

Italy in the Cold War: Politics, Culture, and Society, 1948-58.

Italy in the Cold War years and the legacy of fascism, Christopher Duggan Italy, Europe and the Cold War - the politics and economics of limited sovereignity, D.W. Ellwood Italys policy towards European integration (1947-1958), Antonio Varsori Pope Pius XII - chaplain of the Atlantic alliance? Peter Hebblethwaite American influence on the Italian economy, Vera Zamagni Italy in the post-war international cinema market, Christopher Wagstaff the changing face of Christian democracy, Percy Allum the legacy of the prison notebooks - Gramsci, the PCI and Italian culture in the Cold War period, Stephen Gundle the family in the fifties - a notion in conflict with a reality? Lesley Caldwell industrial design or industrial aesthetics? The American influence on the emergence of the Italian modern design movement 1948-1958, Penny Sparke cultural and ideological effects of linguistic borrowings, Diego Zancani Italian images of Russia, Donald Sassoon critics and intellectuals during the Cold War - the case of Franco Fortini, Robert S. Dromski.

Francesco Crispi, ‘political education’ and the problem of Italian national consciousness, 1860–1896

Abstract Francesco Crispi has often appeared a paradoxical figure. In the earlier part of his life he was a revolutionary republican and a friend of Mazzini. After 1860 he accepted the monarchy, but remained very much a man of the Left and in many ways a quintessential democrat. Yet he ended his career as an authoritarian Prime Minister, a vigorous opponent of the Far Left, and an imperialist, who prorogued parliament and contemplated dispensing with representative government altogether. This article contends that Crispis career has more coherence than is commonly suggested; it focuses on an important but hitherto neglected aspect of his thinking, namely the problem of how to achieve a sense of national consciousness in Italy through ‘political education’. The article traces the development of the idea of national political education throughout Crispis career and argues that his two terms as Prime Minister in 1887–91 and 1893–6 can only be fully understood in the context of his long‐standing concern wit...

Two new books on Fascism. A review, the authors’ responses and the reviewer's comments

This section contains a review by the Italian historian Emilio Gentile of Paul Corners new book on the Fascist Party and public opinion, and of Christopher Duggans intimate history of Mussolinis Italy. The review is followed by responses from Corner and Duggan, and the section concludes with comments by Gentile.

Francesco Crispi, the problem of the monarchy, and the origins of Italian nationalism

Abstract This paper examines the difficulties that the Italian monarchy faced in the decades after unification in establishing itself as a strong symbol of the nation. It suggests that the claims made by the likes of Enrico Corradini that nationalism arose as a reaction to the defeat at the Battle of Adua in 1896 and the fall of Francesco Crispi concealed a broader concern with the authority of the state and the inability of the crown assume control of the executive. Focusing primarily on the career of Francesco Crispi, the paper looks at how attempts to bolster the image of the monarchy, and allay the challenges posed by the papacy and socialism, were compromised after the 1870s by the insipidity of Umberto I and the crowns dangerous embroilment in the 1890s with the Banca Romana scandal. It suggests that Crispis pursuit of military success in Africa was in large part a desperate measure to salvage the position of the monarchy. The defeat of 1896 left many, including Crispi, disillusioned with the monarchy and convinced that Italys political future lay with an authoritarian German-style form of government.

Francesco Crispi's relationship with Britain: from admiration to disillusionment

This article examines the changing attitude of the Sicilian statesman Francesco Crispi towards Britain between the 1850s and the end of the century. While Crispi had enormous admiration for Britain, and recognised that Italy had much to learn from its political system, he also acknowledged that the British constitution was the product of a long process of historical evolution and could never be imitated slavishly in Italy. From the end of the 1870s in particular, Crispi felt that Italy could not concede the degree of freedom permitted in Britain until the state had completed its work of what he called ‘political education’. As prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s Crispi looked to an aggressive foreign policy to strengthen Italys beleaguered institutions, and he counted on British support to achieve this. The refusal of Britain to back him in the way he hoped left him perplexed and ultimately disillusioned about what he had felt was a special friendship between the two countries.

Reviews : Richard J.B. Bosworth and Sergio Romano, eds, La politica estera italiana (1860-1985), Bologna, Società editrice il Mulino, 1991; 360 pp.; Lire 38.000

limits the book’s impact. A broader concern with this aspect of migration patterns would have enabled more attention to be given to the economies from which children and padroni were drawn, and to the extraordinary economic system which took exotic animals under Italian supervision to Moscow, St Petersburg, the East Indies and Latin America as well as to Paris, London and New York. Zucchi seems not to be entirely at home