Italian Modernities: Competing Narratives of Nationhood (Italian and Italian American Studies)

“Italian Modernities, in title and content, poses an important challenge to assumptions that not only bedevil scholarship on Italy but also play a devastating role in Italy’s treatment in the geopolitical arena. By complicating what we mean by “modern,” the authors gently but firmly upset the easy assumptions that have substituted for thought and that have perpetuated prejudices both within and outside Italy’s borders. Grounded in meticulous historical and ethnological research, Italian Modernities deserves as wide an audience as its scholarship is deep.” (Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University) Dedication 6 Preface 7 Contents 10 Chapter 1: Into Italy, into the Modern 12 Italy and the Modern: Reassessing Analytical Paradigms 13 The Present in the Past: On the Anthropology of Memory and Resurrection 18 Methodology: Liminality and ‘Problematization’ 22 Outline of the Book and Chapter Contents 25 Chapter 2: Liberal Modernity 34 Celebrating the Modern Nation: The Jubilee of the Patria in 1911 36 Ideal Modernity 36 Italy’s Life Is Everybody’s Life: Patriotism and Universalism 40 Contested Memory, Contested Symbolism: What Nation? 42 The Great War as the Fourth War of Independence 45 Benedetto Croce: The Risorgimento as a History of Liberty 50 Croce’s Philosophy of Liberalism 51 Preliminary Conclusions 56 Chapter 3: Catholic Modernities: Epics of a Christian Nation 67 Interpreting Italy’s Road to Modernity: Risorgimento Legacies 70 Modernity, a ‘Criminal Plan’. The Conquering of Rome and Early State Formation10 72 The Challenge of Modernism 76 Encountering the Nation: Sturzo and a Party of Christian Inspiration 80 Catholic Thought and the Fascist Experience 83 Transalpine Inspiration: Jacques Maritain and the Search for Christian Democracy 89 On the Edge of Transformation 93 Chapter 4: Gramsci and the Italian Road to Socialist Modernity 101 Passive Revolution: From Risorgimento to Fascism 103 Revolution or Restoration: That Is the Question 108 The Revolutionary Moment: From Russia to Italy 109 Revolutionary Theory and Practices 111 Intellectuals, Hegemony, and the Modern Prince: The Risorgimento Once Again 117 Chapter 5: Fascist Modernity 129 Mussolini and the Risorgimento 130 Fascism and Its Multiple Pasts: Rome and the Risorgimento 133 Politics of History: Fascism and Risorgimento Between Continuity and Revolution 137 Gentile, Mazzini, and Mussolini: Prophets of the Risorgimento 138 Fascism and the Origins of the Risorgimento 140 Myth and Ritual: 1932 as the High Point of Presentist Memory Politics 143 Exhibiting the Fascist Revolution 144 Fascism as an Alternative Modernity 147 Chapter 6: Frictions of Modernity: World War II as Historical Juncture 159 In the Abyss of War 160 ‘Tutti a casa’: Everybody Go Home 161 World War II as Liminal Juncture: Living Between Two Ages 163 Existential Crisis and the Loss of History 165 The Death of the Patria, the Death of the Father 166 Stories and Narratives of Rebirth and Resurrection 170 Making Choices 170 Gendered Modernity 173 New Narratives of Meaning: Resurgence 175 The Resistance, the Risorgimento: Toward the New Republic 179 Chapter 7: Competing Modernities: Postwar Italy and the Struggle over a Divided Past 188 Communists and Christian Democrats after World War II: Democracy, the Italian Way 189 Christian Democracy 190 The Italian Communist Party 195 Intellectual Hegemony and the Progressive Left 199 Reshaping the Past: War, Memory and Political Legitimacy 202 Hegemonic Narrative and Forgotten Memories 208 The Resistance, the Risorgimento and Italian Cultural Memory 209 Chapter 8: Fragile Modernities: Critique, Crisis, and Emancipatory Politics 218 The Specter of Revolution 220 The 1968 Figuration 221 Emancipatory Violence 223 A World of Dreams: Utopian Modernity 225 The Return of Class: Students Go to Factories 226 Workerism: Putting Socialist Modernity Back on Track 229 What Revolution? Neo-Marxism and Maoism 231 Exotic Marxism and the Search for a Revolutionary Model 231 Pluralism, Liberation, and the Search for Autonomy 233 Ulster as Paradigm for Urban Revolution 234 ‘Let us Take the City’ 235 The Problem of Violence and the Red Brigades 236 1977: The Revolution Comes 239 The Hobbit Camp and the Youth Culture of the Italian Social Movement 241 Augusto del Noce and the Catholic Critique of Modernity 244 The End of Revolution 246 Chapter 9: After Modernity? Nationhood in the Post-­Cold War Era 255 Italy in the Post-Cold War Period: Multiple Crises and Contested Nationhood 256 Historical Revisionism and World War II 258 Regained Nationhood and the Return of the Risorgimento 261 National Memory and the Politics of Reconciliation During the Ciampi Presidency 262 Postmodern Italy? 264 When Italy Paves the Way 266 Politics and Technocracy 266 Personal Politics: Berlusconi and Beyond 266 Political Thought and the ‘New Left’ 269 Political Thought as ‘Weak Thought’ 271 Immigrant Literature, Culture, and Post-colonialism 271 Economy and Family Business 272 Chapter 10: What If We Were Never Modern? 278 Italy, Land of Missed Opportunities? 279 Orientalizing Italy 281 Italy and ‘the South’ as an Alternative Modernity? 283 Name Index 289 Subject Index 296 This book argues that Italy represents a privileged entry point into the comparative analysis of ideologies and experiences of modernity. The book compares how thinkers and politicians belonging to different ideological clusters - Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Chistian Democracy - came to formulate multiple and often antagonistic visions of Italy's road to the modern. By revisiting Italian political history from the late nineteenth century until the present with a focus on transition periods, Italian Modernities explores how competing historical narratives influenced shifting understandings of Italian nationhood, thus foregrounding the active role of memory politics in the formulation of multiple modernities. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Into Italy, into the Modern....Pages 1-22 Liberal Modernity....Pages 23-55 Catholic Modernities: Epics of a Christian Nation....Pages 57-90 Gramsci and the Italian Road to Socialist Modernity....Pages 91-118 Fascist Modernity....Pages 119-148 Frictions of Modernity: World War II as Historical Juncture....Pages 149-177 Competing Modernities: Postwar Italy and the Struggle over a Divided Past....Pages 179-208 Fragile Modernities: Critique, Crisis, and Emancipatory Politics....Pages 209-245 After Modernity? Nationhood in the Post-Cold War Era....Pages 247-269 What If We Were Never Modern?....Pages 271-281 Back Matter....Pages 283-296 This book argues that Italy represents a privileged entry point into the comparative analysis of ideologies and experiences of modernity. The book compares how thinkers and politicians belonging to different ideological clusters - Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Chistian Democracy - came to formulate multiple and often antagonistic visions of Italy's road to the modern.--Publisher's description