La Grande Italia: The Rise and Fall of the Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century

by Emilio Gentile, Suzanne Dingee, Jennifer Pudney

Overview

La Grande Italia traces the history of the myth of the nation in Italy along the curve of its rise and fall throughout the twentieth century. Starting with the festivities for the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy in 1911 and ending with the centennial celebrations of 1961, Emilio Gentile describes a dense sequence of events: from victorious Italian participation in World War I through the rise and triumph of Fascism to Italy’s transition to a republic.
    Gentile’s definition of “Italians” encompasses the whole range of political, cultural, and social actors: Liberals and Catholics, Monarchists and Republicans, Fascists and Socialists. La Grande Italia presents a sweeping study of the development of Italian national identity in all its incarnations throughout the twentieth century. This important contribution to the study of modern Italian nationalism and the ambition to achieve a “great Italy” between the unification of Italy and the advent of the Italian Republic will appeal to anyone interested in modern European history, Fascism, and nationalism.

Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for Regional General Interests, selected by the Public Library Association

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299228149
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	12/08/2008
Series:	George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Edition description:	1
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Emilio Gentile is professor of contemporary history at the University of Rome La Sapienza. He is a distinguished historian of Fascism and totalitarianism, best known for his interpretation of politics as religion. He is the author of several books, including The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy; The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism; The Origins of Fascist Ideology, 1918-1925; and Politics as Religion. Suzanne Dingee and Jennifer Pudney are freelance translators based in Rome, Italy. They have taught English translation at Rome’s Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators for more than twenty years and have recently completed translating another work by Emilio Gentile, God's Democracy.

Table of Contents

Contents
 
Illustrations                  
Preface            
Notes from the Author 
 
Part One: The Fatherland of the Italians
Introduction: The Fatherland's Jubilee                           
1. Modernity Freedom Italianità                                   
2. Complex of Greatness                                 
3. The Italies of Monarchic Italy                                   
 
Part Two: Which Italy?
4. The Metamorphosis of a Myth                                 
5. Italianism and Modernity                              
6. Italian Imperialists                            
7. The Man and the Patriot                              
 
Part Three: The Fascist Nation
8. Italy in Black Shirts                          
9. Remaking the Italians                                   
10. A New Imperial Civilization                                   
11. The Fascist War                            
12. The Failed Identity                         
 
Part Four: No-man's-Land
13. Where Is Italy?                              
14. Pull the Idol Down                         
15. In Search of a Country                               
 
Part Five: The Country of Political Parties
16. A Great but Small Nation                           
17. A Myth for the Republic                            
18. The Italies of Republican Italy                                
 
Conclusion: The Jubilee of the Simulacrum                                
 
Notes                          
Index                           

Editorial Reviews

Certainly the best discussion of a national myth over the whole time span of a nation that I know.”—George L. Mosse



“La Grande Italia exposes the shallowness of an entire row of well-known but flawed ‘narratives’ of the nation-building process in Italy on our library shelves. This comprehensive work supersedes them by giving full weight to the role played by the various utopian projects and social movements born of Italian nationalism, while making penetrating use of heuristic concepts such as myth, modernity, modernism, and the sacralization of politics to reveal the deeper structures of events and processes invisible to some of those who pride themselves in being ‘empirical’ historians.”—Roger Griffin, Oxford Brookes University



“Emilio Gentile’s La Grande Italia is a work of rare quality. It covers, with assurance, economy, intelligence, and objectivity, a century of Italy’s turbulent history. This book is a significant contribution to the literature devoted to Italian Fascism and to the history of Italy after the Fascist experience.”—A. James Gregor, University of California at Berkeley
 

From the Publisher