Stephen Gundle, Between Moscow and Hollywood: The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943–1991. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. 269 pp. $64.95 cloth; $21.95 paper.

Abstract

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) after 1943, writes Stephen Gundle, managed to construct “the last great left-wing subculture in Western Europe” (7). Given the unusual interest in “culture” in the broadest sense of the term exhibited by Palmiro Togliatti, the undisputed key figure in post-war Italian Communist politics, an English-language study of the PCI's cultural policies is thus highly welcome and long overdue. Stephen Gundle manages to present an informative and authoritative account, which is highly recommended for anyone interested in the politics of culture and the culture of politics within the European Left.