Simon Lewis Sullam. Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism

Simon Lewis Sullam addresses the Mazzini problem: Giuseppe Mazzini has been glorified by many writers during and after Italian unification as a major contributor to it who aimed not just to end foreign domination of the country but also to promote political freedom within it. Yet his works have also been found useful by illiberal elements, even fascist dictators, in furthering what seem to be entirely different political aims. Mazzini has figured so prominently in accounts of the Risorgimento and of “the making of Italy” that any perceived failings in his work threaten to undermine the credit of the whole process. A particular concern of Sullam’s Giuseppe Mazzini and the Origins of Fascism is to consider the use of Mazzini’s work by authoritarian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—and even by Mussolini and other fascists. The structure of the book is intriguing. It is made up of an introduction, five chapters, a conclusion, and an afterword, each translated into English by one of two translators. This yields rather more than one hundred pages of text. Then there follow nearly sixty pages of notes. A considerable knowledge of both Italian history and Italian literature is assumed. The translations are sometimes awkward.

Art · Authoritarianism · Democracy · Humanities · Literature · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Unification · Classics · European Political History Analysis · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law · Philosophy