Giulia Albanese, Roberta Pergher (a cura di), In the Society of Fascists, Acclamation, Acquiescence, and Agency in Mussolini's Italy

08.07.2013

From a broad transnational base, a lively set of young historians pursue open questions about Fascist rule in Italy.  Since Mussolini was the first modern dictator, and the term totalitarian originated with his regime, their answers are worth everyone’s contemplation.” — Richard Bosworth, senior research fellow, Jesus College, Oxford.

It has been a commonplace in Italian scholarship that Fascism enjoyed its long tenure not through terror but because of widespread popular consensus. By contrast a recent wave of research has reintroduced the notion of “totalitarianism” to discussions of Mussolini’s regime — yet often without testing the degree of active participation or opposition. So what was the relationship between Fascists and followers, party and people? Bringing together scholarship — much of it appearing for the first time in English — on both elites and ordinary people, this volume offers a wide-ranging, in-depth analysis of Italian society’s involvement in Fascism.