The essay by Sergio Rizzo and Alessandro Campi “The long shadow of fascism. Why Italy is still stuck in Mussolini” (pp. 304, 18 euros) arrives tomorrow in the bookstore for Solferino.
“Is it possible – reads the presentation sheet of the book – that one hundred years after the March on Rome in Italy we are still divided on the historical judgment of fascism? Yes, because we live in a country where the Mussolini family is still in politics ( a family dynasty with few parallels in the world). Because at the end of the war in the ranks of the public administration many fascists remained in their place. regulations and circulars in current legislation where the word “race” still appears. Not only that: our streets abound with monuments praising fascism with many titles that took place in the Republican age. How could a modern right be born if that space was immediately occupied by the heirs The founders of the Social Movement were exponents of the Republic of Salò allied with the Nazis. I give space to the banal vision of Longanesi, Montanelli or Pansa who saw the regime as a freak phenomenon “. Rizzo and Campi “sign the merciless radiography of a country where an instrumental use of fascism survives: the right continues to refer to its sentimental heritage by passing it off as patriotism, the left shakes its specter for reasons of electoral calculation. But a democracy can have a such contradictory relationship with his past? “
Sergio Rizzo was a columnist for Corriere della Sera and deputy director of Repubblica. He is the author of numerous bestsellers including La casta, written with Gian Antonio Stella (2007). Among his most recent books we mention 02.02.2020. The night we left the euro (2018), The memory of the hamster (2019), Let’s take back the state (with Tito Boeri, 2020) and Absolute power (2022).
Alessandro Campi teaches at the University of Perugia. He is the director of the “Political Review” and columnist of the “Messaggero”. Among his recent books, Nación. Historia de una idea y de un mito político (Madrid, 2019) and Machiavelli and political conspiracies. The struggle for power in the Italian Renaissance (New York- London, 2021). He published an ideological profile of Mussolini (2001) and edited the reprint of his Giornale di guerra (2016).