Fascist modernities : Italy, 1922-1945 / / Ruth Ben-Ghiat

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910780082803321
• Autore: Ben-Ghiat Ruth
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2001
• ISBN: 1-282-35790-5; 9786612357909; 0-520-24216-5; 0-520-93805-4; 1-59734-614-4
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (x, 317 pages)
• Collana: Studies on the history of society and culture ; ; 42
• Disciplina: 945.091
• Soggetti: Fascism and culture - Italy - History; Fascism - Italy - History; Italy Politics and government 1922-1945; Italy Intellectual life 20th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-304) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Toward a Fascist Culture -- 2. Narrating the Nation -- 3. Envisioning Modernity -- 4. Class Dismissed -- 5. Conquest and Collaboration -- 6. The Wars of Fascism -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: Ruth Ben-Ghiat's innovative cultural history of Mussolini's dictatorship is a provocative discussion of the meanings of modernity in interwar Italy. Eloquent, pathbreaking, and deft in its use of a broad range of materials, this work argues that fascism appealed to many Italian intellectuals as a new model of modernity that would resolve the contemporary European crisis as well as long-standing problems of the national past. Ben-Ghiat shows that-at a time of fears over the erosion of national and social identities-Mussolini presented fascism as a movement that would allow economic development without harm to social boundaries and national traditions. She demonstrates that although the regime largely failed in its attempts to remake Italians as ; paragons of a distinctly fascist model of mass society, twenty years of fascism did alter the landscape of Italian cultural life. Among younger intellectuals in particular, the dictatorship left a legacy of practices and attitudes that often continued under different political rubrics after 1945.