Until recently, historians of World War II have mainly studied Europe during liberation--from the final years of the conflict to the start of the Cold War--from the perspective of nations, of political units. A whole historiography has been built on examining how national elites worked to restore institutions, positions of power, and infrastructure in order to reestablish central authority within the postwar territory assigned to each state. But, as this volume shows, the events of liberation played out not only in politics, but also in society at local, regional, national, and international levels. In thirteen incisive essays, the contributors to "Seeking Peace in the Wake of War" examine European social life--instances of exchange, the actors involved, and their motivations--during these years of state emergence and transition. They postulate that the issue of how peace was conceived of and constructed in the postwar period should be approached as an episode of reconfiguration stretching far beyond politics, in which new arrangements were reached within societies, states, and the international order.

This collection of essays brings together the work of a new generation of revisionist historians who argue that the true history of Southern Italy has been reduced to that of a 'Southern problem' viewed through a Northern prism. These scholars suggest that the South was not a 'backward' region, but a combination of regions in which different social and economic patterns had evolved in response to the prevailing conditions within the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine not only the concrete history of the South, but also the discourses and images in which it has been framed. It is the first publication in English devoted to the new history of Southern Italy, and brings together many of the leading figures in the revisionist movement, as well as some of their critics.