Italy and Its Eastern Border, 1866-2016

Italy and Its Eastern Border, 1866-2016
Author: Marina Cattaruzza
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317648730

This is the first scholarly work in Modern European History which elucidates consistently how border issues affect the history of nations and states in the 19th and 20th centuries. The book rethinks the Italian history of the last 150 years from the perspective of its eastern periphery and of the profound impact that events on the border had on the core of the country.

Virginio Gayda, the Yugoslav Question and the Italian Irredenta

Virginio Gayda, the Yugoslav Question and the Italian Irredenta
Author: Anthony Di Iorio
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2023-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004681159

This is a study of the early writings of Virginio Gayda (1885-1944), a talented but amoral Italian journalist whose career spanned two world wars. A keen observer, prolific writer and propagandist during his stint as the newspaper La Stampa’s special correspondent in Habsburg Vienna, Gayda lent his considerable skills to promote an aggressive foreign policy. No one did more than he to poison relations between the Italian and Yugoslav peoples. His is the story of a respected journalist who chose an ultranationalist path to fascism and international fame. Not uninfluenced by rank careerism and material reward he forsook his roots to embrace the antisemitic “race” laws of 1938 and Italy’s disastrous partnership with Nazi Germany.

Duce: The Contradictions of Power

Duce: The Contradictions of Power
Author: Peter J. Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 479
Release: 2023-06-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 019775466X

Eighty years after the fall of Benito Mussolini, controversy remains about what his dictatorship represented. This reflects the different sides to the Duce's leadership: while adept at nurturing and enforcing his personal political power, Mussolini's lack of insight into the requirements of governance prevented him from converting this power into influence to achieve his goals. His efforts to maintain the support of Italy's conservative elites--economic, social and political--also created tensions with his radical Fascist ambitions, diminishing the momentum behind his regime. Mussolini is frequently portrayed as a charismatic leader, but his rule was secured principally by coercion, violence and a 'spoils system'. Nonetheless, his personality cult had significant popular appeal, even if based upon a political myth. This enabled him to consolidate his position and to dominate his Fascist colleagues--but at a price of over-centralized, dysfunctional decision-making. In this book, the first comprehensive English-language study of Mussolini in nearly two decades, Peter J. Williamson brings to life the contradictions within the Duce's leadership. Using a wide range of sources, Williamson reveals how these conflicts impeded the dictator's ambitions, leaving him increasingly frustrated, all while most Italians endured the severe privations of both failure and Fascism.

The Wars of Yesterday

The Wars of Yesterday
Author: Katrin Boeckh
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2018-01-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1785337750

Though persistently overshadowed by the Great War in historical memory, the two Balkan conflicts of 1912–1913 were among the most consequential of the early twentieth century. By pitting the states of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro against a diminished Ottoman Empire—and subsequently against one another—they anticipated many of the horrors of twentieth-century warfare even as they produced the tense regional politics that helped spark World War I. Bringing together an international group of scholars, this volume applies the social and cultural insights of the “new military history” to revisit this critical episode with a central focus on the experiences of both combatants and civilians during wartime.

Hidden Geographies

Hidden Geographies
Author: Marko Krevs
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 518
Release: 2021-10-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030745902

This book defines and discusses the term “hidden geographies” in two ways: systematically and by presenting a variety of examples of the research fields and topics concerning hidden geographies, with the aim of stimulating further basic and applied research in this area. While the term is quite rarely used in the scientific literature (more often as a figure of speech than to illustrate or problematize its deeper meaning), we argue that hidden geographies are everywhere and many of them have significant impacts on (other) natural and social phenomena and processes, subsequently triggering changes, for example in landscape, economy, culture, health or quality of life. The introductory section of the book conceptualises hidden geographies and discusses cognitive geography, symbolization of space, and the hidden geographies in mystical literature. Case studies of hidden environmental geographies address soils, air pollution, coastal pollution and the allocation of an astronomical tourism site. Revealing hidden historical and sacred places is illustrated through examples of the visualisation of the subterranean mining landscape, the analysis of the historical road network and trade, border stones and historical spatial boundaries, and the monastic Carthusian space. Hidden urban geographies are discussed in terms of the urban development of an entire city, presenting the role of geography in rescuing architecture, revealing illegal urbanisation, and the quality of habitation in Roma neighbourhoods. Case studies of hidden population geographies shed light on the ageing of rural populations and the impact of spatial-demographic disparities on fertility variations. Discussions of hidden social and economic geographies problematize recent social changes and conflicts in a country, present the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution and borders as hidden obstacles in the organisation of public transport. Hidden geographies are explicitly linked to perceptions and explanations in case studies that address local responses to perceived marginalisation in a city, the solo women travellers’ perceived risk and safety, and hidden geographical contexts of visible post-war landscapes. The book brings such a diversity of views, ideas and examples related to hidden geographies that can serve both to deepen their understanding and their various impacts on our lives and environment, and to attract further cross-disciplinary interest in considering hidden geographies – in research and in our every-day lives.

Boundaries and Borders in the Post-Yugoslav Space

Boundaries and Borders in the Post-Yugoslav Space
Author: Nenad Stefanov
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2021-10-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110712768

The disintegration of Yugoslavia, accompanied by the emergence of new borders, is paradigmatically highlighting the relevance of borders in processes of societal change, crisis and conflict. This is even more the case, if we consider the violent practices that evolved out of populist discourse of ethnically homogenous bounded space in this process that happened in the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990ies. Exploring the boundaries of Yugoslavia is not just relevant in the context of Balkan area studies, but the sketched phenomena acquire much wider importance, and can be helpful in order to better understand the dynamics of b/ordering societal space, that are so characteristic for our present situation.

Latin America's Global Border System

Latin America's Global Border System
Author: Beatriz Zepeda
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2022-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000581462

Latin America’s Global Border System is the opening volume in the first collection of academic works devoted exclusively to borders and illegal markets in Latin America. This volume features expert discussions on border issues of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico and Peru, as well as studies on illegal markets, cities, and gender as a first step to understanding the intricacies of the global border system of illegal markets and Latin America’s role in it. The book constitutes a valuable source of information on the geographic, economic, demographic, and social characteristics of the most important Latin American border regions, and their relation to global illegal markets, while also offering valuable insights into the ways illegal markets are organized in each country and how they connect across borders to create the global border system. This book will not only be a valuable resource for academics and students of international relations, security studies, border studies and contemporary Latin America, but will also prove relevant to national and international policy-makers devoted to foreign, security and development policies.

The Cold War [5 volumes]

The Cold War [5 volumes]
Author: Spencer C. Tucker
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 2392
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1440860769

This sweeping reference work covers every aspect of the Cold War, from its ignition in the ashes of World War II, through the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War superpower face-off between the Soviet Union and the United States dominated international affairs in the second half of the 20th century and still reverberates around the world today. This comprehensive and insightful multivolume set provides authoritative entries on all aspects of this world-changing event, including wars, new military technologies, diplomatic initiatives, espionage activities, important individuals and organizations, economic developments, societal and cultural events, and more. This expansive coverage provides readers with the necessary context to understand the many facets of this complex conflict. The work begins with a preface and introduction and then offers illuminating introductory essays on the origins and course of the Cold War, which are followed by some 1,500 entries on key individuals, wars, battles, weapons systems, diplomacy, politics, economics, and art and culture. Each entry has cross-references and a list of books for further reading. The text includes more than 100 key primary source documents, a detailed chronology, a glossary, and a selective bibliography. Numerous illustrations and maps are inset throughout to provide additional context to the material.

Diplomacy in Southeastern Europe

Diplomacy in Southeastern Europe
Author: Petra Mayrhofer
Publisher: V&R Unipress
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2022-03-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 3847014102

This issue of zeitgeschichte off ers a comprehensive survey of aspects of Yugoslav foreign policy during Cold War détente. Due to its geostrategic location on the Balkan peninsula, Yugoslavia became an important focus for the U.S.S.R. and the United States during the East–West confl ict. After the break with Stalin in 1948, the Yugoslav "leader" Tito sought to position Yugoslavia as a non-aligned state on the international level and played a hegemonic role in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The articles analyze Yugoslav policy in the 1960s and 1970s, examining its intentions, its developments, its strategic advantages, and its limits in the context of (geo-)political, economic, and cultural circumstances, with a focus on non-alignment as a leitmotiv of Yugoslav political ambitions, political and economic relations between Yugoslavia and countries of the NAM, the role of the Balkans in U.S. Cold War policy, and aspects of Yugoslav labor migration.

The Fiume Crisis

The Fiume Crisis
Author: Dominique Kirchner Reill
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674249690

Recasting the birth of fascism, nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I, Dominique Kirchner Reill recounts how the people of Fiume tried to recreate empire in the guise of the nation. The Fiume Crisis recasts what we know about the birth of fascism, the rise of nationalism, and the fall of empire after World War I by telling the story of the three-year period when the Adriatic city of Fiume (today Rijeka, in Croatia) generated an international crisis. In 1919 the multicultural former Habsburg city was occupied by the paramilitary forces of the flamboyant poet-soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio, who aimed to annex the territory to Italy and became an inspiration to Mussolini. Many local Italians supported the effort, nurturing a standard tale of nationalist fanaticism. However, Dominique Kirchner Reill shows that practical realities, not nationalist ideals, were in the driver’s seat. Support for annexation was largely a result of the daily frustrations of life in a “ghost state” set adrift by the fall of the empire. D’Annunzio’s ideology and proto-fascist charisma notwithstanding, what the people of Fiume wanted was prosperity, which they associated with the autonomy they had enjoyed under Habsburg sovereignty. In these twilight years between the world that was and the world that would be, many across the former empire sought to restore the familiar forms of governance that once supported them. To the extent that they turned to nation-states, it was not out of zeal for nationalist self-determination but in the hope that these states would restore the benefits of cosmopolitan empire. Against the too-smooth narrative of postwar nationalism, The Fiume Crisis demonstrates the endurance of the imperial imagination and carves out an essential place for history from below.