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Loretta Baldassar is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. --
The volume offers compelling examples of recent scholarship addressing various aspects of how European societies came to terms with, or chose to overlook, their experiences under fascism. Included are studies of significant regional diversity: France, Spain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Germany and Austria, as well as transnational themes. Each essay advances its own particular thematic and methodological approach, from everyday life experiences to political culture, educational reform, family history and memory, diplomatic relations, the work of international governmental organizations, and a case study involving an economic institution. The shared perspective of the authors is the analysis of the different and various ways in which the fascist past cast a shadow over societies after fascism.
In the 19th century, Alessandro Manzoni dedicated himself to writing the novel I promessi sposi that encouraged the Italian Risorgimento. This book traces how the renowned novelist was inspired by an event that occurred at the beginning of the 17th century, which he came to know about thanks to the secret collaboration of a Venetian archivist.
The first women entered national government in Italy in 1946, and represented a "lost wave" of feminist action. They used a specific electoral and legislative strategy, "constitutional rights feminism," to construct an image of the female citizen as a bulwark of democracy. Mining existing tropes of femininity such as the Resistance heroine, the working mother, the sacrificial Catholic, and the "mamma Italiana," they searched for social consensus for women's equality that could reach across religious, ideological, and gender divides. The political biographies of woman politicians intertwine throughout the book with the legislative history of the women's rights law they created and helped pass...
The terms “capitalism” and “socialism” continue to haunt our political and economic imaginations, but we rarely consider their interconnected early history. Even the eighteenth century had its “socialists,” but unlike those of the nineteenth, they paradoxically sought to make the world safe for “capitalists.” The word “socialists” was first used in Northern Italy as a term of contempt for the political economists and legal reformers Pietro Verri and Cesare Beccaria, author of the epochal On Crimes and Punishments. Yet the views and concerns of these first socialists, developed inside a pugnacious intellectual coterie dubbed the Academy of Fisticuffs, differ dramatically f...
This Handbook addresses the role of women in communism as a global, social and political movement for the first time, exploring their lives, forms of activism, political strategies and transnational networks. Comprising twenty-five chapters, based on new and primary research, the book presents the lives of self-identified communist women from a truly international perspective and outlines their struggles against fascism and colonialism, and for women’s emancipation and national liberation. By using the lens of transnational political biography, the chapters capture the broader picture of these women’s lives, unpacking the links between the so-called public and private, the power structur...
This book is the outcome of a successful workshop held in Leeds in September 2003 and explores the effects of World War II on the representation of gender in post-war literature, film and popular culture, juxtaposing Western European experience with US, Soviet and Japanese. It aims to outline the different ways in which these representations evolved in post-war attempts both to re-establish social order and reconstruct national identity. It gives the reader an overview of the similarities and differences that have emerged in the representation of war and gender in different cultures and media, as a result of social expectations, political change and individual artistic innovation. The essays are linked by their concern with three key questions: how are emotion and gender represented in relation to the experience of war; what is the impact of war on the dynamic between the genders; and, as the memory of war recedes, is it possible to identify chronological shifts in the artistic response to the conflict?
The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Italy provides a comprehensive account of Italy and Italian politics in the 21st Century. Featuring contributions from many leading scholars in the field, this Handbook is comprised of 28 chapters which are organized to deliver unparalleled analysis of Italian society, politics and culture. A wide range of topics are covered, including: Politics and economy, and their impact on Italian society Parties and new politics Regionalism and migrations Public memories Continuities and transformations in contemporary Italian society. This is an essential reference work for scholars and students of Italian and Western European society, politics, and history.
“Maria Montessori, a Relevant Story is the best biography of Maria Montessori that I know of, certainly in Italy, but perhaps also in the world, absolutely of the same value as Rita Kramer’s historical one. Grazia Honegger Fresco is a Montessorian in heart and soul, endowed with a deep knowledge of Maria Montessori’s life and work, and her book is not a dull retelling of news already known, nor a hagiography. The author has done extensive research in Italy and abroad, consulting original and private documents of Maria Montessori and her family, and listening to those who knew Maria intimately. The result is this wholly original masterpiece.” Carolina Montessori (great-granddaughter of Maria)
This book takes the reader on an exploration of the Cosmos, from Mesopotamia and Egypt to China; it unveils the fascinating development of astronomy and mathematics. After an overview of the origins of these subjects, highlighting the contributions of Greek astronomers, the Arab culture, and Copernicus' solar system model, the book delves into the revolutionary work of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton, leading to a comprehensive understanding of the solar system. Special attention is given to the instruments used by ancient astronomers, including the most important astronomical clocks and planetary machines. In light of this, the author examines Kepler's almost...