The Comrade from Milan

The Comrade from Milan
Author: Rossana Rossanda
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1788739639

In this much-lauded memoir, acclaimed for its blend of literary elegance and political passion, Rossana Rossanda, a legendary figure on the Italian left, reflects on a life of radical commitment. Active as a communist militant in the Italian Resistance against fascism during World War Two, Rossanda rose rapidly in its aftermath, becoming editor of the Communist Party weekly paper and a member of parliament. Initially a party loyalist, she was critical of the party’s conservatism in the face of new radical movements and moved into opposition during the late 1960s. The breach widened after she and others publicly opposed the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and were expelled in 1969. She went on to help found the influential paper il manifesto, which remains the most critical daily in Berlusconi's Italy. Her unique experience enables her to reconstruct that period with flair and authority. She paints a revealing picture of fascism, communism, post-war reconstruction and the revolts that shook Europe in the 1960s. In The Comrade from Milan, one of the most influential intellectuals of the European Left relives the storms of the twentieth century. Both cool-headed and precise, Rossanda provides a rare insight into what it once meant to be politically engaged.

Autobiographical Cultures in Post-War Italy

Autobiographical Cultures in Post-War Italy
Author: Walter S. Baroni
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2021-01-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 135019073X

After the Second World War, two contrasting political movements became increasingly active in Italy - the communist and feminist movements. In this book, Walter Baroni uses autobiographical life-writing from both movements key protagonists to shed new light on the history of these movements and more broadly the similarities and differences between political activists in post-war Italy.

The Complete Works of Malatesta Vol. IV

The Complete Works of Malatesta Vol. IV
Author: Errico Malatesta
Publisher: AK Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1849351597

After escaping from forced residency on an island off the coast of Italy, Malatesta made his way to London and eventually Paterson, New Jersey, in 1899. Here, among thousands of weavers in the burgeoning silk industry, Malatesta contributed to the anarchist press and was caught up in intrigue with fellow Italian anarchists—resulting in a bullet to the leg on September 3, 1899. From the columns of Questione Sociale, he addressed the themes of organization, the anarchist program, freedom as a method, the problem of love, bourgeois influences of anarchism, and much more. Incorporating Malatesta’s articles on the American situation, unpublished interviews, and reports on French and Spanish conferences—such as those held in Cuba in March 1900—this volume demonstrates the transnational dimension of Malatesta's activity, the breadth of his views and experiences, and his prominent role in labor and anarchist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Includes an introduction by the late historian Nunzio Pernicone.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2023-03-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0063290693

"An absolutely dazzling entertainment. . . . Arousing on every level—political, erotic, intellectual, and above all, humorous." —Newsweek "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting calls itself a novel, although it is part fairy tale, part literary criticism, part political tract, part musicology, and part autobiography. It can call itself whatever it wants to, because the whole is genius." —New York Times Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

Claretta

Claretta
Author: R. J. B. Bosworth
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2017-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300214278

A master historian illuminates the tumultuous relationship of Il Duce and his young lover Claretta, whose extraordinarily intimate diaries only recently have become available Few deaths are as gruesome and infamous as those of Benito Mussolini, Italy's fascist dictator, and Claretta (or Clara) Petacci, his much-younger lover. Shot dead by Italian partisans after attempting to flee the country in 1945, the couple's bodies were then hanged upside down in Milan's main square in ignominious public display. This provocative book is the first to mine Clara's extensive diaries, family correspondence, and other sources to discover how the last in Mussolini's long line of lovers became his intimate and how she came to her violent fate at his side. R. J. B. Bosworth explores the social climbing of Claretta's family, her naïve and self-interested commitment to fascism, her diary's graphically detailed accounts of sexual life with Mussolini, and much more. Brimful of new and arresting information, the book sheds intimate light not only on an ordinary-extraordinary woman living at the heart of Italy's totalitarian fascist state but also on Mussolini himself.

The JOKE

The JOKE
Author: Milan Kundera
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 340
Release: 1993-02-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 006099505X

All too often, this brilliant novel of thwarted love and revenge miscarried has been read for its political implications. Now, a quarter century after The Joke was first published and several years after the collapse of the Soviet-imposed Czechoslovak regime, it becomes easier to put such implications into perspective in favor of valuing the book (and all Kundera 's work) as what it truly is: great, stirring literature that sheds new light on the eternal themes of human existence. The present edition provides English-language readers an important further means toward revaluation of The Joke. For reasons he describes in his Author's Note, Milan Kundera devoted much time to creating (with the assistance of his American publisher-editor) a completely revised translation that reflects his original as closely as any translation possibly can: reflects it in its fidelity not only to the words and syntax but also to the characteristic dictions and tonalities of the novel's narrators. The result is nothing less than the restoration of a classic.

The Archipelago

The Archipelago
Author: John Foot
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2018-05-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 140884351X

'An enjoyable, highly readable history that manages to bring murky, often fiendishly complex events into the light' Sunday Times Italy emerged from the Second World War in ruins. Divided, invaded and economically broken, it was a nation that some people claimed had ceased to exist. And yet, as rural society disappeared almost overnight, by the 1960s, it could boast the fastest-growing economy in the world. In The Archipelago, historian John Foot chronicles Italy's tumultuous history from the post-war period to the present day. From the silent assimilation of fascists into society after 1945 to the artistic peak of neorealist cinema, he examines both the corrupt and celebrated sides of the country. While often portrayed as a failed state on the margins of Europe, Italy has instead been at the centre of innovation and change – a political laboratory. This new history tells the fascinating story of a country always marked by scandal but with the constant ability to re-invent itself. Comprising original research and lively insights, The Archipelago chronicles the crises and modernisations of more than seventy years of post-war Italy, from its fields, factories, squares and housing estates to Rome's political intrigue.