David Aliano. Mussolini's National Project in Argentina

This is a thoughtful analysis of fascist Italy's project to promote the political and ideological construction of transnational Italian nationhood among Italian immigrants in Argentina. The author draws effectively on government archival material in Italy and Argentina, as well as on newspaper and other sources, in exploring “the role played by Argentine national discourses in shaping the debate over Italian national identity that took place on Argentine soil” (p. 18). Benito Mussolini reversed 1920s nationalist alarm in Italy over early twentieth-century emigration by shaping alternative, inspiring notions of a geographically ample Italian nation. Aliano documents the multifaceted fascist project to win political converts among Italian immigrants in Argentina, which included offers of service from the renowned playwright Luigi Pirandello during two Argentine tours (1927 and 1936). While initially focused on political support for fascism, the project evolved to more subtle activities that included the sponsorship of educational initiatives and children's summer camps as well as a propaganda campaign that featured newsreels and handbooks for training fascists in Argentina.

Aesthetics · Art · Economic history · Emigration · Government (linguistics) · Identity (music) · Ideology · Immigration · Media studies · National identity · Nationalism · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law