The Struggle for Modernity Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism

Subjects:

• History » European History -- Modern/20th Century
• Political Science » Political Philosophy
• History » World War II

Reviews:

• This volume affords its English-language readership an enticing introduction to the highly charged contemporary historiography that surrounds the figure of Benito Mussolini, his regime, and his era....Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
  —Choice October 2004
• [T]his is without a doubt one of the best books in English on the relationship between politics and the culture of modernism in Italy. It is to be hoped that it will be read not only by Italianists, but by scholars of modernism tout court, to whom it will offer a nuanced, complex and cliche-free perspective on early twentieth-century Italian culture.
  —Modern Italy February 2006
• [O]ffers a good range of Gentile's insightful analysis of fascism's contentiousl relationship to modernity and demostrates the value of intellectual-cultural history for understanding the fascist phenomenon.
  —The American Historical Review February 2005

• Endorsement From Philip V. Cannistraro
  Distinguished Professor, Queens College, City University of New York: Emilio Gentile is the leading authority on the history of Italian Fascism. This collection of essays demonstrates his innovative approach to the perplexing notion of modernist politics through original research in intellectual and cultural history. Gentile brilliantly explores the connections between modernism and Fascism and posits the category of modernist nationalism as a key element in understanding the origins of Fascism and the nature of its regime.
• Endorsement From Roger Griffin
  Oxford Brookes University, Oxford: This collection of essays displays Gentile's outstanding capacity to analyze Fascism's uniqueness, while locating it firmly within the wider context of modern history. . . . It should help convince a new generation of Anglophone scholars that Gentile is a master in his own right.
• Endorsement From Walter L. Adamson
  Professor of History, Emory University: Gentile has long been regarded in Italy as the premiere historian of fascism of his generation but, to date, the appearance of his work in English has been dispersed and selective. Now, with his new book, which brings together both new essays and previously published ones, English-language readers are for the first time in a position to appreciate the full range of Gentile's scholarly resourcefulness about, and comprehensive understanding of, his subject, as well as his dexterity as an historian and the sprightly writing and unfailing critical acumen that have made his work so important. There is no better introduction in English to the complex historiography of the origins and nature of Italian fascism.

Table of Contents:

• Series Editor Foreword
• Foreword
• Introduction: Italian Nationalism and Modernity
• Modernist Nationalism
• The "New Man" and the "New State": The Sacralization of Politics and Myth of National Regeneration
• The Struggle for Modernity: Echoes of the Dreyfus Affair in Italian Political Culture, 1898-1912
• Conflicting Modernisms: La Voce Against Futurism
• The Conquest of Modernity: From Modernist Nationalism to Fascism
• Fascist to Totalitarianism
• Fascism and the Italian Road to Totalitarianism
• Myth and Organization: The Rationale of Fascist Mass Politics
• The Great Pedagogue: The Role of the Fascist Party in the Totalitarian Experiment
• The Italian Fasces Abroad: The "Foreign Policy" of the Fascist Party
• Mussolini's Charisma
• The Theatre of Politics in Fascist Italy
• Impending Modernity: Fascism and the Ambivalent Image of the United States
• Conclusion: The End of a Myth