Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism

ISBN-13: 9781137514585 / Angielski / Twarda / 2015 / 206 str.

Simon Levis Sullam

Opis

In this controversial and groundbreaking study, Simon Levis Sullam proposes a compelling reinterpretation of the political thought of one of Italy's founding fathers, Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872). By suggesting a new approach to understanding the origins of fascist ideology, he sheds much-needed light on the continuity between nineteenth-century Italian nationalism and fascism. Providing the first in-depth analysis of the religious aspects of Mazzini's nationalism (which has generally been categorized by historians as liberal and democratic), Levis Sullam identifies its authoritarian and potentially anti-democratic components and traces their influence on the rise of conservative and fascist politics in Italy. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that the absence of a civil religion in the process of Italian national identity formation, in concert with the Risorgimento's relatively weak democratic tradition, was a critical factor in the evolution of right-wing ideology in the nation.

O autorze

Simon Levis Sullam is an Associate Professor of Modern History at Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Italy. He has been an Andrew W. Mellon Postodctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, USA; a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, Italy; and a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK.