H. Stuart Hughes

The Aftermath of the Risorgimento in Four Successive Interpretations

THE four decades of Italian history I86I-I9oo offer an almost too neat example of the fashion in which historical understanding proceeds by successive approximations. Each major interpretation of the period in question has represented a corrective or answer to a previous interpretation. The general account that has become standard for most nonspecialists-Croces History of Italy, i87I-I9i5-already represents an answer to a previously accepted view. And both the original view and the reply to it reflected the historical circumstances out of which they were formed. Once the political objective of the Risorgimento had been achieved, the attitude of most reflective Italians toward their recent past had been frankly critical. They had emphasized the weaknesses in the nations development and more particularly the sense of disappointment and of a fall in moral level that had followed the ardors of the Risorgimento itself. As long as this view represented nothing more than a national examination of conscience and a spur to future action, it need have caused no particular misgivings. But when the Fascists began to exploit the general conviction of political degeneration and missed opportunities, in order to discredit the whole parliamentary tradition, and when in particular they denied the very real progress that had occurred after the turn of the century, it was time for a responsible historian to redress the balance. It was at this point that Croce raised his voice. With his customary attitude of lofty serenity, the philosopher-historian searched out the positive elements in his countrys parliamentary past and sought to link them together in a narrative that would be both intellectually coherent and aesthetically pleasing. In its strictly political aspects, Croces account has undergone little subsequent correction. His reassessment of the fall of the old Right in terms of natural development rather than sudden catastrophe, his shift in emphasis from the juridical conflict between church and state to a consideration of the manner in which the dissidio gradually resolved itself into a prac-

The United States and Italy

An outline of the political, economic, and social development of present-day Italy and its relationship to the United States.