Surprise Castle
Against Redemption: Democracy, Memory, and Literature in Post-Fascist Italy

Against Redemption: Democracy, Memory, and Literature in Post-Fascist Italy - Paperback

$36.99
Quantity
01

Pay over time for orders over $35.00 with

Availability:In StockContributor:Franco BaldassoSeries:World War II: The Global, Human, and Ethical DimensionPublish date:2022-12-06Pages:320
Language:EnglishPublisher:Fordham University PressISBN-13:9781531502393ISBN-10:1531502393UPC:9781531502393Book Category:Political Science, HistoryBook Subcategory:Political Ideologies, Europe, Wars & ConflictsBook Topic:Fascism & Totalitarianism, Italy, World War IISize:9.00 x 6.00 x 0.71 inchesWeight:1.0318Product ID:SC8VS4K3R2

WINNER, HELEN AND HOWARD R. MARRARO PRIZE IN ITALIAN HISTORY

Discloses the richness of ideas and sheds light on the controversy that characterized the transition from fascism to democracy, examining authors, works and memories that were subsequently silenced by Cold War politics.

How a shared memory of Fascism and its cultural heritage took shape is still today the most disputed question of modern Italy, crossing the boundaries between academic and public discourse. Against Redemption concentrates on the historical period in which disagreement was at its highest: the transition between the downfall of Mussolini in July 1943 and the victory of the Christian Democrats over the Left in the 1948 general elections. By dispelling the silence around the range of opinion in the years before the ideological struggle fossilized into Cold War oppositions, this book points to early postwar literary practices as the main vehicle for intellectual dissent, shedding new light on the role of cultural policies in institutionalizing collective memory.

During Italy's transition to democracy, competing narratives over the recent traumatic past emerged and crystallized, depicting the country's break with Mussolini's regime as a political and personal redemption from its politics of exclusion and unrestrained use of violence. Conversely, outstanding authors such as Elsa Morante, Carlo Levi, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, in close dialogue with remarkable but now-neglected figures, stressed the cultural continuity between the new democracy and Fascism, igniting heated debates from opposite political standpoints. Their works addressed questions such as the working through of national defeat, Italian responsibility in World War II, and the Holocaust, revealing how the social, racial, and gender biases that character-ized Fascism survived after its demise and haunted the newborn democracy.
Language:EnglishPublisher:Fordham University PressISBN-13:9781531502393ISBN-10:1531502393UPC:9781531502393Book Category:Political Science, HistoryBook Subcategory:Political Ideologies, Europe, Wars & ConflictsBook Topic:Fascism & Totalitarianism, Italy, World War IISize:9.00 x 6.00 x 0.71 inchesWeight:1.0318Product ID:SC8VS4K3R2
Franco Baldasso is Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Program at Bard College. He is Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and co-Director of the Summer School program at Sapienza University in Rome, "The Cultural Heritage and Memory of Totalitarianism."
Publisher: Fordham University Press

Contributor(s)

Franco Baldasso

Free shipping on orders over $75. Standard shipping takes 3-7 business days. Returns accepted within 30 days of purchase.

Recently Viewed

View All