Roberta Pergher

Storia dell'Italia repubblicana

chance he had of maintaining good relations with Italy in the immediate postwar years. Rossini’s book does have some shortcomings, however. The author implies that the Italian people supported their government’s territorial aims in the war, for example, but she does not provide much analysis of why ordinary Italians had this view or of who exactly promoted or opposed it. Rossini also puts forward a dubious interpretation of Wilson’s statecraft, portraying the president as an idealistic, messianic figure who failed to use his wartime leverage over the Allies to get their commitment to what she suggests was a moderate, sensible peace programme. This view ignores evidence Rossini herself mentions in passing (Wilson’s early decision to accommodate Italy’s demand for the Brenner border on strategic grounds), glosses over the vagueness and impracticality many historians see in the ‘Fourteen Points’, and betrays a lack of familiarity with recent literature on the Paris Peace Conference depicting Wilson as quite punitive in his approach toward Germany (see, for example, the essays in Boemeke et al. (1998). Despite these problems, Woodrow Wilson and the American Myth in Italy is a wellresearched and valuable work. It makes a significant contribution to our understanding of US–Italian relations during the war and its discussion of the US propaganda campaign in Italy is superb. Any student of the First World War, wartime Italy, or Wilsonianism would benefit from reading this book. Ross A. Kennedy Illinois State University a 2009 Ross A. Kennedy

Mussolini's Nation-Empire: Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy's Borderlands, 1922–1943

Roberta Pergher transforms our understanding of Fascist rule. Examining Fascist Italys efforts to control the antipodes of its realm - the regions annexed in northern Italy after the First World War, and Italys North African colonies - she shows how the regime struggled to imagine and implement Italian sovereignty over alien territories and peoples. Contrary to the claims of existing scholarship, Fascist settlement policy in these regions was not designed to solve an overpopulation problem, but to bolster Italian claims to rule in an era that prized self-determination and no longer saw imperial claims as self-evident. Professor Pergher explores the character and impact of Fascist settlement policy and the degree to which ordinary Italians participated in and challenged the regimes efforts to Italianize contested territory. Employing models and concepts from the historiography of empire, she shows how Fascist Italy rethought the boundaries between national and imperial rule.

The Consent of Memory

“I speak well of Mussolini not out of nostalgia, but because at the time we were enthusiastic about him” one of my interviewees assured me.2 “There was no reason to complain,” explained another, while describing what life was like for Italians in the colony of Libya in the 1930s.3 Referring to his compatriots who arrived in Libya thanks to an extensive state settlement program, a longtime Italian resident in Tripoli said, “Those people from Upper Italy were lucky that the government took such good care of them.”4 One of these former settlers contended that “our governor, a Fascist, was a really good man.”5 “If only the war had not broken out!” sighed one of my female interviewees, recalling her exciting youth in Libya.6

Il fascismo degli italiani. Una storia sociale

negotiated their newly found subjectivities after 1860 between national, regional and urban, as well as European adherences, his insistence on doing away with received notions about Italian ‘backwardness’, and his sophisticated interpretation of the relationship between politics and culture will contribute much to our understanding of Italian liberalism. Körner’s book also makes good on his claim that his is a study offering a new perspective on the origins of Italian fascism. To a very large extent, fascism stood for the resurgence of the Roman Empire against the liberal claim for Italy’s more ancient Etruscan origins; it also stood against a liberal municipal tradition that argued for both, loyalty to the nation and local autonomy. Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg Brown University a 2010 Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg