Carlo Rosselli (1899-1937) was one of the most charismatic and influential of European antifascist intellectuals. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, and abandoning a promising career as a professor of political economics, he devoted his considerable fortune and ultimately his life to the struggle against fascism. In 1925, he was instrumental in establishing the first underground antifascist newspaper. While imprisoned for his subversive political activities, he wrote his magnum opus, Liberal Socialism, arguing that socialism was the logical development of the principle of liberty. After a daring escape, he made his way to Paris and became the driving force behind a new political movement, "Justice and Liberty." Rosselli was among the first to arrive in Barcelona after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in which he commanded an armed column of volunteers in defense of the Republic. When Italian fascists discovered Rosselli's plot to assassinate Mussolini, they declared him the regime's most dangerous enemy and had him murdered, along with his brother, noted historian Nello Rosselli, on a country road in Normandy.
In this work, the first biography of Rosselli in English, Stanislao Pugliese skillfully interweaves the strands of heresy, exile, and tragedy in Rosselli's life. The drama and drive of his narrative enhance the scholarly contribution that this work makes to modern Italian history and to the study of European antifascism.
Stanislao G. Pugliese is Professor of Modern European History at Hofstra University.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Younger Brothers
Autocritica
Liberal Socialism
Justice and Liberty
The Tragic Hero
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
Carlo Rosselli is excellent scholarship on an important subject, handled with discerning intelligence and balanced, reflective judgment, and written in crisp, tight prose.
Charles F. Delzell
Professor Pugliese's carefully researched and objective book is a fine contribution to our understanding of the life and thought of Carlo Rosselli, the brilliant Italian anti-Fascist who founded the 'Justice and Liberty' liberal-socialist movement and courageously fought Mussolini's regime at home and abroad until his brutal assassination during the Spanish Civil War. — Charles F. Delzell, author of Mussolini's Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance
John Patrick Diggins
Carlo Rosselli is excellent scholarship on an important subject, handled with discerning intelligence and balanced, reflective judgment, and written in crisp, tight prose. — John Patrick Diggins, author of Mussolini and Fascism: The View from America
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Thank you for your book which I found interesting to read. I particularly appreciate the sober style with which you have traced Carlo Rosselli's noble political and human portrait, underlining his extreme refusal to bend to the ideological premises of a regime, and his rejection of its moral and intellectual baseness. — Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of Italy
Antonio Negri
An extremely important book...doesn't surrender to the seductions of the time and the falsifications that followed. — Antonio Negri, co-author of Empire
Walter L. Adamson
This largely biographical account of the liberal socialism of Carlo Rosselli reads with the animation of a good detective story and yet is strong as scholarship. Rosselli's life, here presented in a vivid, spirited, and highly accessible narrative, makes for captivating reading, and his political activity is clearly and accurately described. — Walter L. Adamson, author of Avant-Garde Florence: From Modernism to Fascism
