A Civil War

That Claudio Pavone’s monumental reflection on the many meanings of Italy’s wartime resistance movement should have finally found an English-language publisher is a great tribute to all concerned: the editor Stanislao Pugliese, its academic sponsors (including Charles Maier, Victoria de Grazia, Mark Mazower and the late Tony Judt) and Verso, the left-wing publishing house of London and New York. From the start, though, it should be made clear that this is not a ‘history of the Italian resistance’ in any conventional, narrative sense. Readers desiring a clear, recent account of the military and political evolution of the movement as a fighting force (September 1943–April 1945) could choose the chapter by Massimo Storchi in Hitler’s Europe Ablaze: Occupation, Resistance, and Rebellion during World War II, edited by Philip Cooke and Ben H. Shepherd (2014). Indeed, a solid knowledge of what happened when, and how, is essential background preparation for tackling this exceptional book: it is not for beginners or the faint-hearted. At the age of ninety-five Pavone published his own brief account of his personal wartime experience (spent mostly in prison), and this too is an essential introduction (La mia resistenza: Memorie di una giovinezza [2015])

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