Week 28
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.
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