History of Modern Italy — Spring

In June of 1861, Cavour died in his family palazzo in Turin. The loss of the brilliant Prime Minister at the most important moment of the unification movement was disastrous for the future of Italy.

Fortunately, Italy had another great aristocrat who grew wine on his country estate who was ready to lead the new Italy: Bettino Ricasoli, (1809-1880) Barone di Brolio. Brolio was one of the greatest of Tuscany's vineyards. It was soon to be the oldest wine business in Italy.  Ricasoli had been the leader of the Tuscan liberation movement for years, and now that Florence had voted to join the new Kingdom of Italy, Ricasoli was the perfect successor to Cavour.

In 1865, the new government would choose to move the capital of the Kingdom to Florence.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

This is the best one-volume history of Italy that includes the modern part that we want. It provides you with a nice introduction to earlier periods and those of you who studied the Renaissance last year will find these chapters an easy review. We will use the book all quarter.

During the first decade of the existence of the new Kingdom of Italy, the new state faced a number of challenges. There were still parts of the Italian peninsula that were not yet in the Kingdom, such as Venice and Rome. Austria still controlled Venice and there would be yet a third war of Italian independence in 1866 to liberate Venice

Rome was still in the hands of the Pope with the protection of French troops. Emperor Napoleon III did not want to withdraw French troops without some plan of protection for the Pope because he depended on support at home in France from conservative Roman Catholic French voters. So he needed some reasonable agreement with the Kingdom of Italy for the protection of the Pope, if French troops left Rome.

Then there was the constant changing of government leadership: Prime Minister after prime Minister, all with problems with the king who wanted to run the country by himself.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The final unification of Italy that included Rome as its capital took place against the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. And therefore some of our students might like to know more about that conflict. There is no better book than this one by the great Michael Howard.

In 1900, Italy was a young, newly unified nation (est. 1861) navigating intense industrialization in the north, severe poverty in the south, and political transition following the assassination of King Umberto I in July 1900. This era marked the beginning of the "Giolittian Era," a period of social reform, economic growth in cities like Milan and Turin (FIAT founded 1899), and rising mass emigration. Following King Umberto I's assassination, Victor Emmanuel III took the throne, leading to a more liberal government. The northern "industrial triangle" (Milan, Turin, Genoa) grew rapidly, while the south (former Kingdom of Two Sicilies) remained predominantly agricultural and poor, worsening the Questione Meridionale (Southern Question). High taxes, poverty, and lack of rights led to strikes, particularly in the Po Valley, and significant emigration, with many departing for the Americas. In foreign policy, Italy aimed to be a great power, seeking colonial expansion to boost national morale, later leading to the 1911 invasion of Libya. The early 1900s also saw the socialist movement gain momentum, with 32 seats won in the 1900 elections, reflecting growing demands for improved labor conditions.

The Assassination: King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated on July 29, 1900, in Monza by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist. Bresci shot the King three or four times with a revolver to avenge protesters killed during the 1898 Milan riots. The assassination took place just after an athletic event. Gaetano Bresci, a weaver living in Paterson, New Jersey, who returned to Italy specifically for the act. The motivation for the act was revenge for the Bava Beccaris massacre, where, in May 1898, General Bava Beccaris used artillery against protesting workers in Milan, killing many. King Umberto later awarded the General for his actions. At 9:30 PM in Monza, as the king was in an open-air carriage after a sports ceremony, Bresci fired four shots at close range. Bresci was tackled by the crowd. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and found dead in his cell a year later under suspicious circumstances.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The Young Mussolini

Mussolini was born in a small town in the Romagna near Forli. (The Romagna is a provincial name that echoes Rome, but is a distinct area of northern Italy stretching southeast and northwest from Bologna.)

His father, Alessandro Mussolini was an extreme radical thinker in a very small town, who hated the church as much as he loved Garibaldi. Papa Mussolini brought up his son in a household of hot political debate. All day, all the time, they discussed and acted upon radical political motivations.

The Mussolini family celebrated the "people," the "popolo." Alessandro Mussolini preached about the people and the rich nasty aristocrats who lived off of the poor and the downtrodden. So young Benito grew up in the middle of constant political debate. And he grew to be very good at it. His various breakthroughs into power were all driven by his unique rhetorical power that was with him from the very beginning.

 

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Our discussion of Mussolini may move you to want to know more about him. The best biography is this one by Christopher Hibbert.

From Amazon:
“Christopher Hibbert is a wonderful narrative historian who has illuminated many corners of Italian life and history. He has the gift of creating scenes and characters, of rendering the vividness of the past. His Mussolini is no exception. He manages to convey both the charisma and dilettantismo of Mussolini the revolutionary leader as well as the later folly of Il Duce, the dictator who began increasingly to believe his own rhetoric -- ''Mussolini is always right' -- in leading his country into World War and ruin.” ―Alexander Stille, award-winning author of Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian-Jewish Families Under Fascism, and of The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi

Reviews:
“Hibbert is a remarkably prolific popular historian, who can take on almost anything, from Dickens to General Wolfe, from Agincourt to Garibaldi.” ―The Observer

“An excellent account...balanced and perceptive in outlook...well-written and entertaining.” ―Economist

“[Hibbert] is a superbly skillful historical writer.” ―The Spectator

“An adroitly written evocation of a compelling but enigmatic personality, a man whose ambition, idealism and opportunism would not seem out of place on the political scene today.” ―Publishers Weekly on Disraeli

“Hibbert's lively and engaging portrait of Benjamin Disraeli joins the author's numerous other well-received, popular biographies...A supremely readable and enjoyable study of a colorful, often astonishing and modern character.” ―Library Journal on Disraeli

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING

The single best book in the English language to explain the power of Hitler and Mussolini with the crowds of followers and the power of their words is Eric Hoffer's brilliant The True Believer. The book is now more than fifty years old, and yet it is more relevant and more obviously true than when it was published in the 1950's. The secret of the dictators was that they knew how to touch the hearts of their trouble peoples and to engender in those hearts the willingness to sacrifice one's self to the larger cause. Hoffer explains what this was all about. The book is a masterpiece and is still read in universitie classes studying the mind and movements of the masses in the Twentieth Century. If you have never read it, this is the perfect time to do it.

The slow march to war that dragged across Europe for fourteen years and exploded in Serbia in August, 1914, was resisted by the International Socialist Brotherhood. They dreamed of the day when all workers of all countries would unite and throw off their chains.

But the other force of the late Nineteenth Century, every bit as powerful as Socialism and Communism, was Nationalism. The peoples of the various countries could be awakened very quickly with calls to a nationalistic brotherhood. Mussolini was caught in this dilemma in the early years of the Twentieth Century when his old Marxist teachers were all for resisting war. But he could see that the people wanted it.

And his problem as a leader of the Left was the same as that for all the leaders of the Socialist and Communist Left as they all approached the seeming inevitability of a World War. His move from Socialist Left to Fascist Right is very much rooted in his experience of war and what he learned about his Italian brothers and sisters in the war.>/p>

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the Italian Socialist Party, his views now centering on Nationalism instead of Socialism, and later founded the Fascist movement.

Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship.

Within five years he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. Mussolini remained in power until he was deposed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943. A few months later, he became the leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime in northern Italy; he held this post until his death in 1945. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. However, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, resulting in Declarations of War by France and the United Kingdom and starting World War II.

On 10 June 1940, with the Fall of France imminent, Mussolini officially entered the war on the side of Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity and resources to carry out a long war with the British Empire. Mussolini believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France and then he could concentrate his forces on a major offensive in North Africa, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces.

However, the UK government refused to accept proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Axis victories in Eastern and Western Europe and plans for an invasion of the UK did not proceed. So the war continued. In the summer of 1941 Mussolini sent Italian forces to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, and war with the United States followed in December.

On 24 July 1943, soon after the start of the Allied invasion of Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism voted against him, and the King had him arrested the following day. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, but was captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian Communists. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The Italian economic miracle in the 1950s and 1960s was a period of rapid industrial growth, transforming Italy from a poor agrarian society into a leading industrial power. Driven by free-market policies, Marshall Plan aid, and cheap labor, industrial output grew over 10% annually, boasting iconic products like the Fiat 500 and Olivetti typewriters. Known as the "boom economico," industrial growth in northern cities like Milan, Turin, and Genoa exceeded 8% per year between 1958 and 1963. The boom was fueled by the American Marshal Plan first and foremost that pumped American dollars into the UK, France, Italy and other European nations, and low taxation, and significant investments in state-owned enterprises (through IRI). This "Boom" era was also marked by cultural rebirth, symbolized by Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1959), the 1960 Rome Olympics, and the rise of Italian fashion and design centered in Milan. Also part of this transformation of post-war Italy was massive migration from the South (Sicily) to the North, with over three million people moving from the agricultural South to industrial northern cities, altering the country's demographic landscape. Presiding over this incredible transformation of Italy in the post-war period was one of the greatest geniuses of Italian politics: Alcide Amedeo Francesco De Gasperi (1881 – 1954). De Gaspari was an Italian politician and statesman who founded the Christian Democracy party and served as prime minister of Italy in eight successive coalition governments from 1945 to 1953. De Gasperi was the last prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy, serving under both Victor Emmanuel III and Umberto II. He was also the first prime minister of the Italian Republic, and also briefly served as provisional head of state after the Italian people voted to end the monarchy and establish a republic. His eight-year term in office remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

 

The "Years of Lead" (anni di piombo) in Italy (roughly 1969–1984) was a period of intense social, political, and terroristic violence characterized by frequent bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings. Extremists from both the far-left (e.g., Red Brigades) and far-right (e.g., NAR) perpetrated roughly 14,000 violent attacks, deeply scarred the nation, and claimed hundreds of lives. The era featured armed struggles between violent far-left militant groups (Red Brigades, Front Line) and far-right neo-fascist organizations (NAR, New Order). Notable events included the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, the 1978 kidnapping/murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and the 1980 Bologna train station bombing. The violence caused widespread fear, instability, and a major decline in trust towards public institutions, often termed "strategy of tension". The period is generally considered to have ended by the mid-1980s following massive state crackdown, mass arrests, and decreasing public support for armed violence. Anni di piombo is commonly translated to "years of lead," referring to the large volume of bullets fired during the period. Armed police were everywhere. The Carabinieri were posted at churches and public buildings carrying heavy machine guns. There was the constant presence of armed danger and potential explosions. The decline of violence in Italy from 1980 to 1990 paralleled international events in which repeated meetings between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev led to the historic disarmament agreement of 1989.

 

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Italy in the 1990s was a decade of total transformation. It begins with the fall of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the USSR had immediate, massive implications for Italy since the Italian Communist Party had always been the #2 party of the country. And in many regions (The Red Triangle) and cities it was the #1 party with immense political power. Events in Moscow in 1991 reverberated into Italy immediately and ripped off all the positive images of productive partnership between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and its Soviet Communist partners. The most important one for Italy was the revelation out of Moscow that the supposedly independent Italian Communist Party was really the puppet of the Soviet Communist party in every detail. The supposedly independent leader of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer (1922–1984), one of the most admired men in Italy, was now revealed to be totally controlled from Moscow. Dozens of secret trips of Berlingher to Moscow were revealed when the USSR archives were opened to scholars by Boris Yeltsin. Massive amounts of USSR cash for the Italian Communist Party was documented in the archival records. The result of all of these Russian revelations was the total collapse of the Italian Communist Party overnight. One of the two most powerful political parties just disappeared overnight. Meetings were canceled, rented space was emptied, documents were burned. But then, almost as if in some brilliant political movie, the other most powerful political party, the Christian Democratic Party was also destroyed. Within just a few years, the entire Italian political structure was overturned when a Milanese prosecutor began digging into a small bribery case and then it just reverberated on and on and on until the five major parties, the Pentipartito, were all destroyed. All the parties had been receiving secret money, bribes, and payoffs. All of them. Former Prime Ministers were indicted. One on the verge of going to jail, escaped from Italy and went to Libya. The whole decade was one shock after another. But by 2000, Italy was rebuilding stronger than ever, a conditioned which was registered in its adoption of the Euro and the integration of the Italian economy into the fully unified European EEU.

RECOMMENDED READING

In June of 1861, Cavour died in his family palazzo in Turin. The loss of the brilliant Prime Minister at the most important moment of the unification movement was disastrous for the future of Italy.

Fortunately, Italy had another great aristocrat who grew wine on his country estate who was ready to lead the new Italy: Bettino Ricasoli, (1809-1880) Barone di Brolio. Brolio was one of the greatest of Tuscany's vineyards. It was soon to be the oldest wine business in Italy.  Ricasoli had been the leader of the Tuscan liberation movement for years, and now that Florence had voted to join the new Kingdom of Italy, Ricasoli was the perfect successor to Cavour.

In 1865, the new government would choose to move the capital of the Kingdom to Florence.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

This is the best one-volume history of Italy that includes the modern part that we want. It provides you with a nice introduction to earlier periods and those of you who studied the Renaissance last year will find these chapters an easy review. We will use the book all quarter.

During the first decade of the existence of the new Kingdom of Italy, the new state faced a number of challenges. There were still parts of the Italian peninsula that were not yet in the Kingdom, such as Venice and Rome. Austria still controlled Venice and there would be yet a third war of Italian independence in 1866 to liberate Venice

Rome was still in the hands of the Pope with the protection of French troops. Emperor Napoleon III did not want to withdraw French troops without some plan of protection for the Pope because he depended on support at home in France from conservative Roman Catholic French voters. So he needed some reasonable agreement with the Kingdom of Italy for the protection of the Pope, if French troops left Rome.

Then there was the constant changing of government leadership: Prime Minister after prime Minister, all with problems with the king who wanted to run the country by himself.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The final unification of Italy that included Rome as its capital took place against the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. And therefore some of our students might like to know more about that conflict. There is no better book than this one by the great Michael Howard.

In 1900, Italy was a young, newly unified nation (est. 1861) navigating intense industrialization in the north, severe poverty in the south, and political transition following the assassination of King Umberto I in July 1900. This era marked the beginning of the "Giolittian Era," a period of social reform, economic growth in cities like Milan and Turin (FIAT founded 1899), and rising mass emigration. Following King Umberto I's assassination, Victor Emmanuel III took the throne, leading to a more liberal government. The northern "industrial triangle" (Milan, Turin, Genoa) grew rapidly, while the south (former Kingdom of Two Sicilies) remained predominantly agricultural and poor, worsening the Questione Meridionale (Southern Question). High taxes, poverty, and lack of rights led to strikes, particularly in the Po Valley, and significant emigration, with many departing for the Americas. In foreign policy, Italy aimed to be a great power, seeking colonial expansion to boost national morale, later leading to the 1911 invasion of Libya. The early 1900s also saw the socialist movement gain momentum, with 32 seats won in the 1900 elections, reflecting growing demands for improved labor conditions.

The Assassination: King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated on July 29, 1900, in Monza by Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist. Bresci shot the King three or four times with a revolver to avenge protesters killed during the 1898 Milan riots. The assassination took place just after an athletic event. Gaetano Bresci, a weaver living in Paterson, New Jersey, who returned to Italy specifically for the act. The motivation for the act was revenge for the Bava Beccaris massacre, where, in May 1898, General Bava Beccaris used artillery against protesting workers in Milan, killing many. King Umberto later awarded the General for his actions. At 9:30 PM in Monza, as the king was in an open-air carriage after a sports ceremony, Bresci fired four shots at close range. Bresci was tackled by the crowd. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and found dead in his cell a year later under suspicious circumstances.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The Young Mussolini

Mussolini was born in a small town in the Romagna near Forli. (The Romagna is a provincial name that echoes Rome, but is a distinct area of northern Italy stretching southeast and northwest from Bologna.)

His father, Alessandro Mussolini was an extreme radical thinker in a very small town, who hated the church as much as he loved Garibaldi. Papa Mussolini brought up his son in a household of hot political debate. All day, all the time, they discussed and acted upon radical political motivations.

The Mussolini family celebrated the "people," the "popolo." Alessandro Mussolini preached about the people and the rich nasty aristocrats who lived off of the poor and the downtrodden. So young Benito grew up in the middle of constant political debate. And he grew to be very good at it. His various breakthroughs into power were all driven by his unique rhetorical power that was with him from the very beginning.

 

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Our discussion of Mussolini may move you to want to know more about him. The best biography is this one by Christopher Hibbert.

From Amazon:
“Christopher Hibbert is a wonderful narrative historian who has illuminated many corners of Italian life and history. He has the gift of creating scenes and characters, of rendering the vividness of the past. His Mussolini is no exception. He manages to convey both the charisma and dilettantismo of Mussolini the revolutionary leader as well as the later folly of Il Duce, the dictator who began increasingly to believe his own rhetoric -- ''Mussolini is always right' -- in leading his country into World War and ruin.” ―Alexander Stille, award-winning author of Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian-Jewish Families Under Fascism, and of The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi

Reviews:
“Hibbert is a remarkably prolific popular historian, who can take on almost anything, from Dickens to General Wolfe, from Agincourt to Garibaldi.” ―The Observer

“An excellent account...balanced and perceptive in outlook...well-written and entertaining.” ―Economist

“[Hibbert] is a superbly skillful historical writer.” ―The Spectator

“An adroitly written evocation of a compelling but enigmatic personality, a man whose ambition, idealism and opportunism would not seem out of place on the political scene today.” ―Publishers Weekly on Disraeli

“Hibbert's lively and engaging portrait of Benjamin Disraeli joins the author's numerous other well-received, popular biographies...A supremely readable and enjoyable study of a colorful, often astonishing and modern character.” ―Library Journal on Disraeli

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING

The single best book in the English language to explain the power of Hitler and Mussolini with the crowds of followers and the power of their words is Eric Hoffer's brilliant The True Believer. The book is now more than fifty years old, and yet it is more relevant and more obviously true than when it was published in the 1950's. The secret of the dictators was that they knew how to touch the hearts of their trouble peoples and to engender in those hearts the willingness to sacrifice one's self to the larger cause. Hoffer explains what this was all about. The book is a masterpiece and is still read in universitie classes studying the mind and movements of the masses in the Twentieth Century. If you have never read it, this is the perfect time to do it.

The slow march to war that dragged across Europe for fourteen years and exploded in Serbia in August, 1914, was resisted by the International Socialist Brotherhood. They dreamed of the day when all workers of all countries would unite and throw off their chains.

But the other force of the late Nineteenth Century, every bit as powerful as Socialism and Communism, was Nationalism. The peoples of the various countries could be awakened very quickly with calls to a nationalistic brotherhood. Mussolini was caught in this dilemma in the early years of the Twentieth Century when his old Marxist teachers were all for resisting war. But he could see that the people wanted it.

And his problem as a leader of the Left was the same as that for all the leaders of the Socialist and Communist Left as they all approached the seeming inevitability of a World War. His move from Socialist Left to Fascist Right is very much rooted in his experience of war and what he learned about his Italian brothers and sisters in the war.>/p>

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Mussolini served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the Italian Socialist Party, his views now centering on Nationalism instead of Socialism, and later founded the Fascist movement.

Following the March on Rome in October 1922 he became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history until the appointment of Matteo Renzi in February 2014. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes, Mussolini and his followers consolidated their power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship.

Within five years he had established dictatorial authority by both legal and extraordinary means, aspiring to create a totalitarian state. Mussolini remained in power until he was deposed by King Victor Emmanuel III in 1943. A few months later, he became the leader of the Italian Social Republic, a German client regime in northern Italy; he held this post until his death in 1945. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Mussolini had sought to delay a major war in Europe until at least 1942. However, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, resulting in Declarations of War by France and the United Kingdom and starting World War II.

On 10 June 1940, with the Fall of France imminent, Mussolini officially entered the war on the side of Germany, though he was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity and resources to carry out a long war with the British Empire. Mussolini believed that after the imminent French armistice, Italy could gain territorial concessions from France and then he could concentrate his forces on a major offensive in North Africa, where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces.

However, the UK government refused to accept proposals for a peace that would involve accepting Axis victories in Eastern and Western Europe and plans for an invasion of the UK did not proceed. So the war continued. In the summer of 1941 Mussolini sent Italian forces to participate in the invasion of the Soviet Union, and war with the United States followed in December.

On 24 July 1943, soon after the start of the Allied invasion of Italy, the Grand Council of Fascism voted against him, and the King had him arrested the following day. On 12 September 1943, Mussolini was rescued from prison in the Gran Sasso raid by German special forces. In late April 1945, with total defeat looming, Mussolini attempted to escape north, but was captured and summarily executed near Lake Como by Italian Communists. His body was then taken to Milan, where it was hung upside down at a service station for public viewing and to provide confirmation of his demise.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

The Italian economic miracle in the 1950s and 1960s was a period of rapid industrial growth, transforming Italy from a poor agrarian society into a leading industrial power. Driven by free-market policies, Marshall Plan aid, and cheap labor, industrial output grew over 10% annually, boasting iconic products like the Fiat 500 and Olivetti typewriters. Known as the "boom economico," industrial growth in northern cities like Milan, Turin, and Genoa exceeded 8% per year between 1958 and 1963. The boom was fueled by the American Marshal Plan first and foremost that pumped American dollars into the UK, France, Italy and other European nations, and low taxation, and significant investments in state-owned enterprises (through IRI). This "Boom" era was also marked by cultural rebirth, symbolized by Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1959), the 1960 Rome Olympics, and the rise of Italian fashion and design centered in Milan. Also part of this transformation of post-war Italy was massive migration from the South (Sicily) to the North, with over three million people moving from the agricultural South to industrial northern cities, altering the country's demographic landscape. Presiding over this incredible transformation of Italy in the post-war period was one of the greatest geniuses of Italian politics: Alcide Amedeo Francesco De Gasperi (1881 – 1954). De Gaspari was an Italian politician and statesman who founded the Christian Democracy party and served as prime minister of Italy in eight successive coalition governments from 1945 to 1953. De Gasperi was the last prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy, serving under both Victor Emmanuel III and Umberto II. He was also the first prime minister of the Italian Republic, and also briefly served as provisional head of state after the Italian people voted to end the monarchy and establish a republic. His eight-year term in office remains a landmark of political longevity for a leader in modern Italian politics.

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

 

The "Years of Lead" (anni di piombo) in Italy (roughly 1969–1984) was a period of intense social, political, and terroristic violence characterized by frequent bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings. Extremists from both the far-left (e.g., Red Brigades) and far-right (e.g., NAR) perpetrated roughly 14,000 violent attacks, deeply scarred the nation, and claimed hundreds of lives. The era featured armed struggles between violent far-left militant groups (Red Brigades, Front Line) and far-right neo-fascist organizations (NAR, New Order). Notable events included the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, the 1978 kidnapping/murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and the 1980 Bologna train station bombing. The violence caused widespread fear, instability, and a major decline in trust towards public institutions, often termed "strategy of tension". The period is generally considered to have ended by the mid-1980s following massive state crackdown, mass arrests, and decreasing public support for armed violence. Anni di piombo is commonly translated to "years of lead," referring to the large volume of bullets fired during the period. Armed police were everywhere. The Carabinieri were posted at churches and public buildings carrying heavy machine guns. There was the constant presence of armed danger and potential explosions. The decline of violence in Italy from 1980 to 1990 paralleled international events in which repeated meetings between President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev led to the historic disarmament agreement of 1989.

 

REQUIRED READING FOR SPRING QUARTER

RECOMMENDED READING

Italy in the 1990s was a decade of total transformation. It begins with the fall of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the USSR had immediate, massive implications for Italy since the Italian Communist Party had always been the #2 party of the country. And in many regions (The Red Triangle) and cities it was the #1 party with immense political power. Events in Moscow in 1991 reverberated into Italy immediately and ripped off all the positive images of productive partnership between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and its Soviet Communist partners. The most important one for Italy was the revelation out of Moscow that the supposedly independent Italian Communist Party was really the puppet of the Soviet Communist party in every detail. The supposedly independent leader of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer (1922–1984), one of the most admired men in Italy, was now revealed to be totally controlled from Moscow. Dozens of secret trips of Berlingher to Moscow were revealed when the USSR archives were opened to scholars by Boris Yeltsin. Massive amounts of USSR cash for the Italian Communist Party was documented in the archival records. The result of all of these Russian revelations was the total collapse of the Italian Communist Party overnight. One of the two most powerful political parties just disappeared overnight. Meetings were canceled, rented space was emptied, documents were burned. But then, almost as if in some brilliant political movie, the other most powerful political party, the Christian Democratic Party was also destroyed. Within just a few years, the entire Italian political structure was overturned when a Milanese prosecutor began digging into a small bribery case and then it just reverberated on and on and on until the five major parties, the Pentipartito, were all destroyed. All the parties had been receiving secret money, bribes, and payoffs. All of them. Former Prime Ministers were indicted. One on the verge of going to jail, escaped from Italy and went to Libya. The whole decade was one shock after another. But by 2000, Italy was rebuilding stronger than ever, a conditioned which was registered in its adoption of the Euro and the integration of the Italian economy into the fully unified European EEU.

RECOMMENDED READING