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Debating the Meaning of Fascism in Contemporary Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Robert Ventresca
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Abstract

This article takes up the question posed by Claudio Pavone—‘Have the Italians truly known how to come to terms with their past?’—and argues that Italians have indeed grappled with their Fascist past, albeit in varied, contradictory, ambiguous and incomplete ways. This article demonstrates the myriad ways in which Italians—historians, politicians, intellectuals, and segments of the general public—have debated the meaning of Fascism since the fall of Mussolini and the end of the Second World War. What follows below argues that selective remembering and wilful forgetting of the Mussolini regime are nevertheless evidence of an ongoing process of confronting the legacy of Italy's recent past.

Type
Contexts and Debates: Fascism and the Politics of Memory
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2006 , pp. 189 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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