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This book offers a fresh and original approach to the study of one
of the dominant features of the twentieth century. Adopting a truly
global approach to the realities of modern dictatorship, this
handbook examines the multiple ways in which dictatorship functions
- both for the rulers and for the ruled - and draws on the
expertise of more than twenty five distinguished contributors
coming from European, American, and Asian universities. While
confronting the immense complexities of repression and popular
response under dictatorship, the volume also poses a series of
wide-ranging questions about the political organization of
present-day mass society.
Mussolini in myth and memory. Paul Corner looks at the brutal
reality of the Italian dictator's fascist regime and confronts the
nostalgia for dictatorial rule evident today in many European
countries. Mussolini has rarely been taken seriously as a
totalitarian dictator; Hitler and Stalin have always cast too long
a shadow. But what was a negative judgement on the Duce, considered
innocuous and ineffective, has begun to work to his advantage. As
has occurred with many other European dictators, present-day
popular memory of Mussolini is increasingly indulgent; in Italy and
elsewhere he is remembered as a strong, decisive leader and people
now speak of the 'many good things' done by the regime. After all,
it is said, Mussolini was not like 'the others'. Mussolini in Myth
and Memory argues against this rehabilitation, documenting the
inefficiencies, corruption, and violence of a highly repressive
regime and exploding the myths of Fascist good government. But this
short study does not limit itself to setting the record straight;
it seeks also to answer the question of why there is nostalgia -
not only in Italy - for dictatorial rule. Linking past history and
present memory, Corner's analysis constructs a picture of the
realities of the Italian regime and examines the more general
problem of why, in a moment of evident crisis of western democracy,
people look for strong leadership and take refuge in the memory of
past dictatorships. If, in this book, Fascism is placed in its
totalitarian context and Mussolini emerges firmly in the company of
his fellow dictators, the study also shows how a memory of the
past, formed through reliance on illusion and myth, can affect the
politics of the present.
The conspicuous success in Italy of a highly dynamic sector of
small, rurally based manufacturing businesses has attracted a
considerable amount of attention throughout both Europe and the
United States in recent years. This book links this development in
Italy to the processes of transformation of certain parts of the
Italian countryside over the last hundred years and argues that the
involvement of peasant families with both agricultural and
industrial employment - a constant of the situation before the
First World War - produced an entrepreneurial spirit that was
subsequently reflected in the development of rural industries.
Fascism, Nazism, and Communism dominated the history of much of the
twentieth century, yet comparatively little attention has focused
on popular reactions to the regimes that sprang from these
ideologies. Popular Opinion in Totalitarian Regimes is the first
volume to investigate popular reactions to totalitarian rule in the
Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the communist
regimes in Poland and East Germany after 1945.
The contributions, written for this volume by internationally
acknowledged experts in their fields, move beyond the rather static
vision provided by traditional themes of consent and coercion to
construct a more nuanced picture of everyday life in the various
regimes. The book provides many new insights into the ways
totalitarian regimes functioned and the reasons for their decline,
encouraging comparisons between the different regimes and
stimulating re-evaluation of long-established positions.
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CD
(1)
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R154
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