Italy: Trends and Problems

Abstract

In order to discern the principal lines of development of historical research in Italy in recent years on the twentieth century (and further back as well), and to attempt an assessment of the results achieved, it would be necessary to study the whole of the twenty years since the Second World War. The collapse of fascism made possible a new intellectual vitality, and the seriousness and importance of the accompanying events military defeat of fascist Italy, victorious anti-fascist Resistance, end of the monarchy and commencement of the republic provided a stimulus for rethinking the country's previous history, at least from the Risorgimento onwards. In addition, the principal parties which had led the anti-fascist struggle and which were at last able to emerge into the light, strengthened by popular support in a manner new to Italian history, were immediately anxious to make their mark, not only upon contemporary Italy but also upon the country's past, which they boldly examined in search of themes to justify their own aspirations. In this way, the examination of conscience a theme which emerges in various fields of contemporary historiography and which had special reasons for asserting itself in Italy, the cradle of fascism was tempered, so to speak, and made less painful by post-Resistance optimism. In a stimulating essay on the weight attached to the theme of continuity in Italian historical writing, an English scholar has recently called attention to the particularly close link between history and politics in Italy. He regards this continuity and this link as surrogate for the non-existent tradition of a unified state. And there is no doubt that the tendencies noted by Woolf were operative in Italian historiography in the post-war period also, and especially in the first years after 1945, when political passions Editors' note: Unfortunately, for reasons of space it was found impossible to include Professor Pavone's valuable footnotes to this article. We have therefore extracted from them a list only of those works actually quoted or referred to in the text. This is to be found at the end of the article.