The Legacy of the Italian Resistance [Paperback]

This book adds to this growing body of scholarship on the Italian Resistance by analysing, for the first time, how the 'three wars' are represented over the broad spectrum of Resistance culture from 1945 to the present day. Furthermore, it makes this contribution to scholarship by bridging the gap between historical and cultural analysis. Whereas historians frequently use literary texts in their writings, they are often flawed by an insufficiently nuanced understanding of what a literary text is. Likewise, literary critics who have discussed writers such as Calvino and Vittorini, or films such Pais? and La notte di San Lorenzo, only refer in passing to the historical context in which these works were produced. By fusing historical and cultural analysis, author Philip Cooke makes a unique contribution to our understanding of a key period of Italian history and culture.1945-1948 1948-1955 1955-1960 From the Custom's House to the Pantheon: from the Pantheon to the Piazza (1960-1970) 1970-1978 1978-1989 From the End of the First Republic to the Cinquantennale : 1990-1995 The Resistance in the Years of the 'Second Republic'

'Philip Cooke's highly original volume is a comprehensive analysis of the legacy of the Italian anti-fascist resistance...Cooke's study also delves deeply into the thorny area of politics. It covers an extraordinary amount of ground and the bibliography alone is a mammoth achievement. The book is...admirably clear and well organised. It can be read cover-to-cover or dipped into and it covered a very wide set of themes and questions but never in an obscure way...Cooke's important study shows why the resistance still matters.' - History Today

'The legacy of the Resistance runs like a seam beneath the surface of the entire history of postwar Italian politics and culture. Philip Cooke's book does a remarkable service to both scholarly and civic communities by drawing together a mass of information, events, artefacts, works, and 'lc,