In the Society of Fascists: Acclamation, Acquiescence, and Agency in Mussolini’s Italy

by Giulia Albanese (Editor), R. Pergher (Editor)

It has been a commonplace in Italian scholarship that Fascism enjoyed its long tenure not through terror but because of widespread popular consensus. By contrast a recent wave of research has reintroduced the notion of 'totalitarianism' to discussions of Mussolini's regime—yet often without testing the degree of active participation or opposition. So what was the relationship between Fascists and followers, party and people? Bringing together young Italian scholars—many appearing for the first time in English—engaged in new research on both elites and ordinary people, this volume offers a wide-ranging, in-depth analysis of Italian society's involvement in Fascism.

263 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 21, 2012

Reviews

[Benemint · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the entire book very much. The introduction includes a very useful summary of the historiography on Italian and German fascism-people interactions. My favorite was chapters 1,2,3 and 8. Ch.8 in particular was a page-turner.