Introduction

Scholars and students may have opposing views on Italy: they may consider it a late-comer or, conversely, a laboratory or an anomaly. It is however indisputable that the country is still historically, culturally, politically and economically a major European ‘actor’ – often at the centre of transnational webs – which is worth observing or reflecting upon in order to better comprehend its national and international histories. To this end, Storia dell'Italia contemporanea, 1943–2019 inaugurates our ‘Modern Italy discussion series’ on contemporary historiography which will feature timely reflections about topical subjects. This newly-conceived section will expand the journal's remit through collaboration with authors, academic publishers, review editors, and cultural institutions because we want to be involved in academic and cultural debates, becoming a sort of bridge between national and global scholarly production.

Our first discussion originates from a roundtable held at the Fondazione Gramsci in Rome.Footnote ¹ Storia dell'Italia contemporanea was published by Il Mulino in 2019, sold a few thousand copies, and it is still generating some media debate. An English-language edition will be published in Palgrave Macmillan's Italian and Italian American Studies Series in 2022.

Umberto Gentiloni Silveri, a professor of contemporary history at the Sapienza University of Rome and the editor-in-chief of Sapienza Università Editrice, wrote this postwar history of Italy to place the country within a wide geo-political perspective. In so doing, not only did he highlight fears, political constraints, collective narratives, contradictions, and conflicts influencing democracy and the national community up to the present day, but he also looked at how Italian society and politics developed in relation to an international context. The national intricacies this volume presents to its readers as well as its ‘international’ connotations are an intriguing starting point for our new journal platform on historiography. By showcasing the best scholarship on Italy, Modern Italy aims to continue its mission of being an international hub for the study of the fascinating Euro-Mediterranean nation that is Italy.

Laura Fasanaro

Over the last two decades, the historiography on republican Italy has shone light on a variety of aspects of Italian politics. Firstly, drawing on new sources, it has investigated how the parties evolved, their international diplomacy and their perspective on the Cold War. It has reinterpreted Italian foreign policy, in the wake of an expanding body of literature on the changes in the bipolar system. It has focused on biographical research and on the role individuals played in shaping republican Italy. Finally, it has dealt with the thorny issues of the era's periodisation and pivotal moments, and with the controversial topics of the vincolo esterno (‘external constraint’) and Italian ‘exceptionalism’, disputing their use as interpretative models.

Umberto Gentiloni Silveri's book Storia dell'Italia contemporanea, 1943–2019 adds to this rich historiography, which has recognised the need to pose new questions about Italy and uses integrated analysis to look for the answers, taking into account the country's political history and the history of the parties, the evolution of society and economic cycles, interaction with European institutions and politics, and finally the country's close cross-Atlantic ties. This debate now seems well entrenched, as reflected in the growing number of collaborations and joint research projects from scholars with different historical approaches. Italy, where the connection between internal and foreign politics is particularly closely intertwined, is well suited to this form of research.

In this round-table discussion with the author, we will reflect on the book's methodology, chronology and some of the themes it raises. The first striking thing to note is the sustained pace of the writing, with a flowing narrative that allows different viewpoints to interact. The book seems to stem from a profound and mature desire to move beyond analysis and tell the country's story: it recounts the numerous connections between events, political affairs, the parties’ operations and evolution, the growth of social movements, the unique traits of Italian terrorism, the requirements and choices connected to Italy's international positioning, and the ambitions and limitations of its foreign policy. Italy is observed through its numerous contradictions, through the way it was represented by its own ruling class and in public opinion, and through the perception of its allies. The narrative is convincing and well grounded, based on the author's substantial prior analytical work.

The book examines the history of republican Italy from a long-term perspective, encompassing a 70-year period and taking a brave approach to periodisation, which is used boldly in the 2000s, seeking new interpretive angles. In doing so, the author poses some controversial topics for historians: whether the present can be used as inspiration for studying the past, and whether it is acceptable to historicise more recent phenomena. The book reveals the educational function of history in an era of excessive and instant communication. At a time when ubiquitous and perfunctory information constantly drowns out the analysis of events and political phenomena conducted in the social sciences, Gentiloni attempts to navigate the present, using his research tools to provide an analysis of the recent past and the present day, employing (and defending) an analytical method that above all seeks to reconstruct the context in which these events took place, even if some pieces are missing from the final picture. This ability to contextualise contrasts with ‘horizontal’ analysis, where events are seen simply in terms of cause and effect, or the result of infinite lines of continuity based on weak reasoning – such as Italians’ intrinsic ‘nature’ or the tendency of politics to follow predefined routes – in a sort of determinism that ignores the specific traits of Italian politics. In this perspective, even the vincolo esterno is judiciously scaled down:

Gentiloni puts into perspective the image of an Italy constantly conditioned by this ‘constraint’ and submissive to international dynamics, instead tending to position the Italian narrative within the two classic pillars of foreign policy – pro-Europeanism and Atlanticism. Readers therefore discover that history has a social and educational, as well as academic role: the author writes concisely, leaves open the chronology and the definition of the ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’ republics, and takes the risk of continuing right up to the present day. In the final section he delves into the big questions of the 2000s: the most controversial era of Berlusconi's time in office, the topic – relevant to both Italy and Europe – of ‘the exercising of sovereignty and its various forms’ (p. 389) and, internationally, the crisis of multilateralism.

Despite covering a wide time period, between 1943 and 2019, the book retains a great deal of continuity in its periodisation: from the fall of Mussolini to people's expectations for the country's reconstruction; from the ‘economic miracle’ to the international détente; from the implosion of bipolarity in international relations to the rebuilding of the power system in Italy; from the rise of Berlusconi, the face of the new Italian miracle, to the central importance of the European agenda; from the elections of 2006 (‘coalition season’) to the economic troubles in the late 2000s; and finally the Lega and Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) government that emerged from the March 2018 elections, in a Europe divided by the protracted migration crisis and Brexit. The beginnings and ends of these time periods are not set in stone: the narrative flows, rather than being interrupted at one date and restarting with another. The analysis of the present comments on the past and looks ahead to the future and, despite following a chronological timeline, the author prefers to base his work on themes. He suggests how ‘Post-war Italy is therefore a space defined by the end of the Second World War that continues until the present day, marked by breaks and continuities and crossed by the laborious and complex path followed by a national community’ (p. 12).

However, certain moments – 1956 and 1989 in the international sphere, and 1968 – represent political, social, psychological and ‘generational’ (p. 117) turning points. Others, like 1992–4, are not only pivotal moments, but the boundaries of a new historical period that ‘opens and closes with two economic and financial crises (the 1993 recession and the sovereign debt crisis of 2011) and the installation of two technocratic governments (Ciampi, 1993–4; Monti, 2011–13)’ (p. 389). While this was undoubtedly an extraordinary period in Italian history, according to the author it did not mark a true transition from one political and institutional order to another. The consequences of other phases are still hard to assess, and while, in some senses, the economic crisis that began in 2008–9 represents a new 1989, it is not yet clear when the ‘long transition that began after the collapse of 1989’ (p. 354) comes to an end.

There are at least three themes that warrant further reflection. The first regards the date chosen for the beginning of the narrative: this is not the first history of Italy to start in 1943, but the reasons the author gives for choosing this date are interesting. 1943 marks the end of a particular project and worldview:

This postwar project was both Italian and European, found in the birth of the European Federalist Movement, in the idea of supranational cooperation and the principle of reconciling Europe's populations. After the war, a similar vision in France contributed to increasing support for rebuilding Germany in a way that would bring the two continental powers back together. This has been called the ‘paradox of the two post-wars’Footnote ³ and could be seen during the Second World War, when the foundations were laid for a different relationship from the one that in 1919 had given way to revanchism and nationalism – a new postwar era featuring a progressive lack of interest in punitive policies against Germany and a desire to experiment with original solutions to resolve old rivalries. From this perspective, 1943 marks the beginning of the link between rebuilding Europe and bringing peace to the continent, and between these goals and European integration. The key words in the book on this historical period are movement, participation, citizenship, compromise, social cohesion and democracy: all form part of a vision centred on peace, meaning not only an end to hostilities, but, more importantly, the founding process for the republic's new institutions. The Italian Republic was born in a fluid, evolving context, which represented the aspirations, expectations and opportunities of its political forces and social groups: some of these groupings found their role in the postwar reconstruction of politics and identity in early pro-Europeanism.

The second theme is the international dimension of the compromesso storico (‘historic compromise’), an issue that the author suggests is much more complex than is often described. In documents drafted by the Allies and by socialist countries, the compromesso is often simplified to a Manichaean vision of the relationship between the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) and the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), but the project, and the events that accompanied it, actually caused a much more wide-ranging debate on Italy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Out of all these piecemeal interpretations, probably the only political power to grasp the implications of the idea was the German Social Democratic Party, which understood what it was like to work with the communist ideology, and the potential consequences and contradictions of its own Ostpolitik. In the socialist world, however, the tensions with the PCI did not so much stem from the issue of the ‘national roads’ or the compromesso, but rather Enrico Berlinguer's criticism of foreign policy and Soviet security policy and the Italian communists’ views on the Soviet Union's responsibility for the Euromissile crisis and the invasion of Afghanistan.

The third and final theme is the split between politics and society, a recurring feature in Italian history, which began during the first centre-left government's unfinished period of reforms: ‘People's hopes of transformation were dashed and failed to take shape, and so regrets, impossible aspirations and a growing gap between dreams and reality began to take root’ (p. 96). Later on, in the chapter dedicated to the 1970s, Gentiloni returns to this subject: ‘The parties and their milieu appear marked by distrust, widespread malaise, and a distance from important, residual sectors of Italian society. And the gap between politics and society widens as a result …’ (p. 145). These references return in the pages dedicated to the Aldo Moro tragedy, where the author recalls the preludes to another uncoupling of politics and society, one which would later contribute to delegitimising political rule and bolstering various forms of anti-politics.

In conclusion, this book encourages the reader to reflect on original ways of periodising Italian history, juxtaposing well-known pivotal moments and the essential context of the Cold War with other events, themes, steps and cycles that contemporary Italy has experienced during its evolution. In the context of East/West relations, for example, one can identify an Italian ‘long détente’,Footnote ⁴ with its own timescales and unique features. Similarly, when it comes to the transformations of the 1990s and 2000s, we can hope for more systematic analysis of the connections between the evolution of the mafia organisations and the changes in Italian society and politics. And in the wider context of the international debate on development models, one can imagine a new periodisation that follows the evolution of this concept in contemporary Italy, through to the creation of the United Nations and European Union's models of sustainable development. Investigating the concept of development also means exploring views of growth, progress and modernity in republican Italy, and the role of political powers, individuals and epistemic communities in promoting more or less coherent aspects of a vision of the future that still today appears fragmentary or limited to individual political seasons. The value of this book stems not only from its originality and the broad scope of its narrative, but also from the numerous questions it provokes in the reader: one particularly interesting question regards the very existence, in one or more periods of republican Italy, of a concept of the future, of a political project with a corresponding medium- or long-term agenda, that could interpret the spirit of the age and respond to shared expectations.

Gregorio Sorgonà

As I see it, the book divides the history of the Italian Republic into two phases: the rebuilding of democracy conducted by mass political parties, followed by a second phase that emerged as these organisations declined. As well as providing a retrospective viewpoint, Gentiloni also deconstructs the way the Italian public views the republic's history, dominated by oversimplified judgements on the parties’ historic role. The author explains the parties’ founding role in Italian democracy, clearly highlighting how their actions spread beyond parliament and took up the cause of teaching democracy to a nation accustomed to 20 years of the Fascist regime as its sole political force. Another distinctive feature of the history of republican Italy is the network of international allegiances backing each of the country's two main parties, the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) and the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI). One of the key elements of the book is the debate regarding the extent to which Italian history is unique, a subject raised early on in the work.

There is no space here for discussing the influence of the paradigm of exceptionalism on Italian historiography, but research into the history of the Italian Republic is undoubtedly one area where this conviction has been strongest. This volume provides an alternative viewpoint, describing the relationship between Italian history and global twentieth-century history as one of interdependence. This is a persuasive argument, which preserves the distinctive aspects of Italian history without them being amalgamated into an interpretation of the country's history as ‘a collection of errors’ or ‘missed opportunities’ (p. 7), as typically seen in the histories of republican Italy written in the 1990s and 2000s. Incidentally, the exceptionalist viewpoint is now in the minority in Italian historiography, but rampant in journalistic writing and public opinion, a difference worthy of further research.

Viewing the history of the Italian Republic from this perspective of interdependence provides an opportunity to analyse its various contrasting stimuli, most notably the disparity between the inclusive nature of anti-fascism and the exclusionary nature of anti-communism. The author quite rightly opts for a narrative style comprising a series of secondary storylines. For example, he first describes the reform processes that democratised the country, before mentioning the resistance to the attempts at reform expressed not so much by the opposing political forces, but by the broad political and social spectrum from which the government majorities were formed. This approach is very clear in the passages about the centre-left, which recall how the obstacles to reform came not only from clashes between political forces or the unyielding opposition to the changes expressed by certain sectors of the public institutions, but also from the conservative segments of the nation's middle classes.

The interdependence of national and international history is also reflected in the author's choice of periodisation. The end of the ‘golden age’ is brought forward a few years by an Italian event – the Piazza Fontana bombing on 12 December 1969 – and while the crisis of the ‘Republic of Parties’ is shown to be brought about by the death of Aldo Moro, the author also underlines the decisive influence of the changes in international politics in 1979, most notably the resurgence of the Cold War.

The verdict on the following decade converges with those expressed in earlier histories of republican Italy, criticising the political system's handling of the 1980s. This assessment is hard to disagree with given the responsibilities of the governments of that era: despite their modernising rhetoric, they did not prepare the Italian economy for the qualitative leap that the globalisation of markets was producing, closely tied to the integration of science, technology and manufacturing.

The collapse of the ‘Republic of Parties’ is also connected to a sudden change in global history – the end of the Cold War – which provided the necessary conditions for a new political system. Certain aspects unique to the Italian model seemed to disappear, most notably the distinction between government and opposition parties, while others, in particular the high level of mutual delegitimisation between political forces, were heightened. The idea of Italian exceptionalism seemed to return in this new period of history too, an impression strengthened by the way the relationship between the media and political power developed post-1994. But, once again, the paradigm of exceptionalism risks trivialising the situation. When it comes to the mixing of politics and media, the control exerted over both by Silvio Berlusconi was indeed something not seen in any other Western democracy. But in other aspects, the Italy of the past 25 years is less eccentric than it first appears. Neither the overlapping of economic and political power nor the concentration of the media in the hands of the rich are unique to Italy. Berlusconi seems to have been the physical manifestation of the mixing of private interests and political power that has characterised the recent history of Western democracies. The author's approach is useful for placing the Italian right in its historical context, as it does not simply reduce it to something secondary to Berlusconi's interests. Apart from a few important exceptions, the history of Italy's right has been characterised by a stable network of alliances that have kept Forza Italia, Lega and the parties that emerged from the Movimento Sociale Italiano together for over 20 years. The book offers interesting ideas on the ideological glue keeping this alliance intact: the right to property and security, a rhetorical celebration of the nation's greatness, and a reactionary view of civil rights underpin a political offering that is by no means unusual compared to right-wing parties elsewhere in Europe and the USA.

Although the book focuses its analysis on the political system, it is set within the social, economic and cultural dynamics that redefined the borders of sovereignty from the 1990s onwards. In the sections focused on the present day, Italy's safeguarding institutions – the Bank of Italy and the office of the president of the republic – and the governing bodies of the European Union are predominantly styled as competitors, if not outright replacements, for the political system. It is to the author's credit that these transformations are given their due attention. The book helps us to rethink political history, and so acts as a stimulus for more detailed future research into the last 30 years of Italian history, where dialogue between political history and other disciplinary approaches will be essential.

Andrea Guiso

Choosing whether to include the history of republican Italy within the long-term dimension of post-unification Italy or, alternatively, to consider it as a new arché that incorporates the most profound reasons underpinning the European political project, is a decision with countless heuristic and historiographical implications. Umberto Gentiloni's book openly favours the latter, offering a convincing analysis of Italian democracy as a revolutionary ‘project’ of social inclusion and political involvement, centred on the mass political parties. The republic's true raison d’être therefore resided not merely in defining the ‘rules of play’, but in the desire to regenerate politics in the framework of new international dynamics, providing a fresh start and a form of utopia rooted in the tragedies of history. The Second World War, the fall of Fascism and the laborious launch of a pathway to democracy, culminating in the institutional referendum and the years of the Constituent Assembly, are presented as having laid the foundations for a profound and troubled transformation of the country, guided by a pragmatic vision of politics as a way of governing the discord generated by various elements: irrepressible contrasting political and social interests, differences in idealist motivations and temporary objectives among those driving the changes, and shifting international balances – an essential benchmark for a country, as has often been noted, with limited sovereignty. The awareness of the contradictory and conflicting nature of the historical situation in which those in power were required to operate – constantly making choices based on values – therefore ensured the idealist tension of the original project remained alive, as well as ensuring that politics was seen as legitimate and credible in the art of the ‘responsible’ exercise of power. This art was simultaneously free and restrained, marked by the ages-old combination of an aspiration for absolutism and a strong awareness of the partial nature of every result determined by history.

Based on these premises, Gentiloni's reconstruction shifts attention (and the focus of the narrative) from the issue of the political, ideological and social conflicts that afflicted the early years of Italian democracy to the proactive dimension of politics as a patient process of filtering, mediating and including others’ viewpoints, with the aim of restricting conflict to a legitimate and orderly test space. From this perspective, the author's view of the Cold War and the actions it legitimised makes complete sense: not an inherent feature of an irrevocably divided ethos within the republic, but a shifting framework of political action, with external restrictions constantly remodelled by the actions of social forces and political parties. Gentiloni's research over the years has always concentrated on the connections between internal and international politics, including fruitful dialogue with the new historiography on the Cold War that highlights the varied and ‘non-systemic’ character of international relations in the bipolar age, and therefore the extremely porous nature of the instruments of power and influence wielded by the two superpowers.

These strong methodological foundations allow the author to look further ahead for the point on which to focus his investigations into the origins of the crisis in the party system, a topic of central importance in today's historiographical debate. His choice of the 1970s as the moment where the utopian energy and reformist drive of the ‘Republic of Parties’ subsided, reflects a verdict that already has considerable support among historians. However, the author – wisely, in my view – avoids treating it as gospel, highlighting two important considerations. Firstly, the links between events in Italy and a whole series of phenomena with international reach connected to changes in the global economy, the manufacturing system, geopolitical balances and ‘mainstream’ culture, which would alter the way national politics fitted into the external conditions created by several factors: the Cold War, the system of financial rules formulated in 1944, the boom of the consumption-driven capitalist economy and the multilateral and coordinated integration of global trade. And secondly, the demand for innovation in terms of rights and political involvement from large areas of civil society and public institutions, which could be unleashed in part due to the political parties’ strong defence of the democratic system in the face of the threat of terrorism, the final act of a political project rooted in the unitary ethos of the Constituent Assembly.

It is no coincidence that the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro and his bodyguards is identified by Gentiloni as the end point of the tricky process of expanding the state's democratic foundations, which would subsequently be subjected to endless attempts at delegitimisation carried out in the name of efficient decision-making and the dominance of the ‘rules of play’ over values. It was during this step, the author argues, that the art of mediation – which the political parties took to a truly ‘exceptional’ level of institutional complexity when they were at their peak – ended up segueing into the art of ‘non-governance’ that found its Aristotelian unmoved mover in the increasingly self-referential centrality of the Democrazia Cristiana. This paralysing approach to power management ended up, conversely, legitimising the growth and rapid leaps forward of a new ruling class that did nothing but seek ingenious political and institutional solutions to politics’ growing failure to take decisions. Gentiloni does not hold back in his critical and uncompromising opinions on the 1980s under the leadership of Bettino Craxi, defining this era as ‘the season of simple illusions’ (p. 230). He sees it as a period of intense change in republican Italy, marked by a loss of internal consistency and moral standing within the state and the political parties that made up its increasingly frayed social and political fabric. From this viewpoint, the decade dominated by the socialist leader is therefore portrayed as incubating the republic's identity crisis, which would result in the collapse of the party system and the end of politics as a responsible form of managing relationships with shared values and expectations.

However, one has to wonder – a question that should be put to the author – to what extent the illusion of updating democracy's institutional agenda and its ‘rules of play’, the ideological mainstay of this period, was not also the result of the boundless trust in the power of politics that had defined the way the parties and their managing groups operated since their origins. This trust ended – in part due to the extreme complexity of the issues surrounding governance at the heart of the postwar democracy – when the increasingly centralised administration prioritised the pursuit of universal power, as early as the mid-1950s, with a neo-corporate approach to governance and ever-increasing volumes of government legislation. At the same time, this power-hungriness was cemented by strengthening a consociational system of government, built to avoid the ideological polarisation of the parties dictated by their international allegiances, and operating through negotiations in parliament and exchanges introduced at a micro-legislative level.

On this point, I believe the history of republican Italy is intertwined with a crucial, more long-term feature of the nation state. Since its origins, the political fragility of the unified state – and therefore the weakness of politics, undermined by a severe lack of legitimacy – predetermined the relationship between those in power and Italian society. The former were usually forced to give up the prerogative of decision-making power in favour of governance tools designed to take the sting out of the tensions caused by the newly formed gap/conflict between the ‘real’ country and the ‘legal’ country, and so neutralise their potential for division (the Cold War undoubtedly contributed to making this gap/conflict relevant again and returning it to the centre of the national political debate). This resulted in frequent recourse to the ‘administrationalisation’ of politics, where mediation, compromise and exchange took on central importance, depoliticising society and ‘reconciling’ its varied forms of expression, both organised and informal. It is important to note that the era of technocratic governments, the gradual emergence of hegemony between the elites from the upper echelons of the central bank and finance ministers, and the arrival of figures capable of succeeding in promoting dialogue between national politics and global economics also indicate the continued strength during the ‘Republic of Parties’ of more long-term characteristics of the Italian state and its ‘material constitution’. A state whose basic modus operandi (the ‘imperfect machine’ of Fascism was only to some extent an exception) was often outweighed by the ability of politicians and technocrats to maintain the cohesion between politics and society and to manage the external ties and the frameworks underpinning the compatibility between the nation state and the international system.

The removal (both intentional and unintentional) of the intermediaries between politicians and technocrats at the pivotal moment of 1989–92 is one of the most delicate topics addressed by Gentiloni's book, as it is linked directly, as the author makes clear, to the crisis in the various political cultures that had underpinned the republic's governing institutions, shaping them into a sophisticated mediation system, based on the dominance of representation over the principle of decision-making and on the sense of belonging to a shared history. It is no coincidence that from the 1970s onwards the most corrosive and destructive criticism of the ‘particracy’ came from within the party system itself, which was already beset by a profound crisis of identity and lack of direction. Take, for example, the central importance of the ‘moral question’ and the issue of the collusion between party factions and parts of the institutions through the work of one of Aldo Moro's closest partners, Beniamino Andreatta. As Minister of Treasury, Andreatta offered strong political backing to the governor of the Bank of Italy Carlo Ciampi on the issue of the consolidation of the public finances and the sensitive political topic of the bank's traditional subordination to the needs of the Treasury, filtered through political parties and their established social and economic interests. Or consider a figure like Francesco Cossiga, who for somewhat similar reasons decided to accelerate the process begun by Sandro Pertini of transforming the office of the president of the republic into a fully-fledged political role. Or Enrico Berlinguer, who in his interview with Eugenio Scalfari in July 1981 explicitly admitted the existence of subjectivity and civil leadership from ‘outside’ the political parties. The old politics could no longer ignore this leadership, and it soon exploded into assertive demands to reshape the morals of the political system, such as Mario Segni's movement for electoral reform, which acted as a catalyst for the new ‘majoritarian spirt’ that had entered the country through the ‘referendum-based’ democracy proposed by Marco Pannella's Partito Radicale, the personalisation of politics and finally the ‘mediatisation’ of the rituals of power. This spirit was corrosive to the original republican project, and its divisive and partisan forms were heightened following the eruption onto the political scene of Silvio Berlusconi.

The reforms invoked on a daily basis during the 1980s, but never enacted, ended up representing the paradigm of impotence into which the party system, undermined by tactical moves and mutual vetoes, had sunk. This ultimately made it impossible for the topic of institutional reforms to be used as anything other than a means to an end, and became a key element in the aborted transition – or ‘non-transition’ – to the phantom ‘second’ republic. The rhetoric of betrayed change and the legitimisation of politics therefore triggered the final, lethal breakdown that led to the idea of the parties being placed under temporary, remedial administration by powers that, with their expertise legitimised and the unconditional backing of the media, sought, felt authorised or were directly urged to take over its functions. With the political system's attempts at self-reform apparently blocked, the only option was to follow the route of reform provided by the ‘external constraint’, embodied by Europe and the process of monetary integration. An enlightened minority of leaders and personalities, who remained stubbornly tied to the European dream as a ‘point of reference for leaving behind the trauma of the Second World War’, had no qualms about recommending this form of orthopaedic rehabilitation to the country, and this choice became the moral imperative underpinning a political system that was increasingly starved of idealism and a stimulating vision of the future. A major doubt remains over whether, as Gentiloni states, this process actually provided a form of glue and a new unifying benchmark that could bring people together and mitigate (albeit only for a short time) differences and contentiousness, or whether it was the swansong of a ruling class, trained, in line with the great tradition of Risorgimento politics, to consider the nation as an integral part of a wider European and international history.

A response by Umberto Gentiloni

First of all, I would like to thank all the contributors for their observations, suggestions and recommendations, which touched upon some essential aspects regarding not only my book, but also more generally the best methods and tools for reappraising the history of republican Italy. I will try to respond, at least in part, to the observations made by focusing on six key issues, while bearing in mind that the complexity of these topics demands further investigation to support the tools and methods employed in historical research. This must also include contributions from other disciplines if we are to fully understand the various historical and social processes.

In my view, the most important of all the questions raised refers to the connection between the book's construction and its periodisation. As many people have noted, the book's structure is more like a story than a traditional reference book; as Laura Fasanaro says, it presents a dialogue between multiple voices, and a narrative designed to allow different viewpoints to interact. Furthermore, I could not have provided a long-term interpretation of Italy's history without investigating the connections between the numerous aspects that make it so complex, and it was this that led me to find the points of intersection between social phenomena – in the broadest sense of the term – and institutional phenomena. Faced with the complexity of these topics, I long pondered the use of a ‘storytelling’ method, and eventually opted for it. This is connected to the equally important decision regarding the periodisation. Once again, Fasanaro highlights that the year 1943 was not chosen at random as a terminus a quo: it reflects the fact that the events that occurred in the country between September 1943 and April 1945 connected the period of the republic's origins with that which I often call the ‘long postwar’ in the book. The decision to introduce alternative approaches to the traditional periodisation of the history of the Italian Republic stemmed from some reflections I have made in recent years, which also emerge in the balance of the various chapters in the book, and in the importance given to the topics following the pivotal moment of 1989. My aim was, on the one hand, to steer clear of potentially marginalising historic knowledge and, on the other hand, to avoid falling into the traps that can occur from a popular version, where the tendency is to seek an immediate answer to problems that are actually extremely complex. In this constantly connected world, where the present is like one long, single dimension with an invasive, noisy, non-stop flow of information, the past seems a world apart: distant, mysterious, and full of silent and lost traces. But this feeling of otherness risks degenerating into a dangerous distance, where the pages of history written or experienced by generations of Italians become irrelevant. It is as if we are trying to wipe the slate clean of everything that came before us, and establish a year zero, a starting point that eradicates everything and that can be adapted to the needs of the moment. The past is becoming a heavy burden to escape from as quickly as possible, in order to experience the intoxicating feeling of new progress. In so doing, in the rush to free ourselves from this heavy load, the history of contemporary Italy becomes a collection of errors, missed opportunities, unresolved mysteries, betrayed or adapted revolutions, destinations that were never reached and horizons that remain distant.

Historical knowledge is gained by studying problems, unresolved questions that require in-depth study, research and debate. And this debate is often (fortunately) fed by comparing a range of viewpoints, critical approaches, ideas and analyses, without ever achieving certainty or new truths – an antidote to the use and abuse of knowledge for one's one advantage, to the spreading of lies and misleading information, to the use of forms and languages (whether archaic or social media-oriented) that neither respect nor protect the pursuit of knowledge. Understanding the past as a compass to navigate the complexity of the present, as Pietro Scoppola taught us. By contrast, the most rational and substantiated reflections on the uncertainties of our times highlight the complexity of the present, and therefore the need to equip ourselves with languages and methods that can create strategies and pathways to knowledge. My book seeks to remove this risk of distance from the past through a long-term analysis of the processes, with a close, always attentive look at the topics, and particularly the questions, that emerge from modern issues. It aims to achieve a broad vision of Italy and the world by considering the origins and evolution of the processes that affect our everyday lives. In this sense, it is true that there is a difference in style and interpretation between the first and second parts of the book. The first part, which takes us up to 1989, is undoubtedly more historiographically assured, as a result of the strength of the debate in the historiography of the 1990s and 2000s. In the second part, however, we enter more uncertain terrain, and so to understand it I tried to focus more on analysing the events, knowing that the issues are much more open and controversial both in their analysis and interpretation. The only way to establish more clarity on some of the reasons for the current crisis in Italy is by examining the connection between current issues and the facts that emerged in the post-1989 period. If we acknowledge 1992–4 as a moment of rupture, the period between the end of the undefined ‘first republic’ and the elections of 2013 can be analysed as a specific stage in Italy's history, which opens and closes with two economic and financial crises (the 1993 recession and the sovereign debt crisis of 2011) and the installation of two technocratic governments (Ciampi, 1993–4; Monti, 2011–13). This was an essential step. From the mid-1990s onwards the republic found itself having to adapt its organisational structures to a new global context, in part stemming from the recent creation of the Maastricht system and the end of the model of international relations that had underpinned the 1945–89 period. The challenge of balancing innovation and tradition revolved around the so-called ‘structural reforms’ and between those who believed the country's manufacturing and institutional organisations required modernisation, and those who seemed keen to resist or slow down the reform processes. The centre-left's decision to approach the Euro in the late 1990s seemed like the final big opportunity to catch up and create national cohesion: Europe was seen – and presented – as a potential way out of the Italian crisis. The international changes that pushed Italy further away from the centre of the economic system were combined with internal uncertainties and difficulties, caused largely by the paradigm shift brought about by the arrival of Silvio Berlusconi and the Lega Nord in government. More generally, in the 1990s and 2000s, the difficult legacies of previous eras (such as the high level of public debt and the country's low productivity) were accompanied, in a sort of vicious circle, by the failure to complete the reform process launched several years earlier. As a result, the country was fragile and unprepared for the challenges of the post-Cold War period and the new era of globalisation. The major recession of 2008, which erupted in a context of low growth, rising debt and extreme political instability, put pressure on the strength of the public finances and the balance of the system as a whole. This thread connecting 1992–4 with 2011–13 can be clearly seen in the investigations and research into the fate of republican Italy that stem from the questions of today, the challenges of the present.

The second point regards the long-term view one can offer when interpreting 70 years of history. This book attempts to describe the republic's long history, a partial and incomplete journey that explores chronologically the key turning points of a process marked and conditioned by the formation of an (eventually) democratic and inclusive national community. It starts by investigating the importance of international affairs in the modern age – the key legacy of the previous century after the pivotal moment of the two world wars. The journey is explored on two levels: the internal framework of the Italian political system and the changes of a constantly evolving world, with particular focus on the debate between continuity and disruption, tradition and innovation. Contemporary Italy was not created in 1943: one could go back to the very dawn of the nation-building process, or delve into the ideas of identity and nationality that appeared in later centuries. However, periodisation is a convention designed to make things simpler, attempting to give order to the passing of time, rather than provide the answer – or even a means of answering – the many questions surrounding a long period of Italy's history, from the fall of Fascism through to the present day. Nor does it provide a numbered, chronological series of ‘republics’ (the first, the second and the third), which were founded too soon or which disappeared without warning following fashions, the influence of public debate or the effects of a political or legal initiative. Analysing events through a long-term lens, highlighting connections and breaks, continuities and discontinuities over many decades, is something else entirely. The course followed by republican Italy had its roots in post-war Europe, in the building of a representative democracy that sought to include those who had been excluded or marginalised and to create a shared journey towards peace and wellbeing. Today dissatisfaction and fear dominate, and the uncertainties of our time have the upper hand over the faded certainties of a distant past. But history cannot be erased: the profound story of the evolution of republican Italy underpins the present, with all its successes, numerous defeats, ambitious goals and searing disappointments and losses. Understanding that story requires a journey into the complex nature of times, situations, languages and key individuals. A knowledge of history, much more than other forms of study into the present and past, can allow us to understand complexity and give our analysis context and perspective.

The third topic that I believe emerged from the debate, and which in certain ways overlaps with the question of periodisation, is the concept of ‘Italian exceptionalism’, an assumption that has now been dramatically revised in the historiography. The Italian Republic is over 70 years old, while the Cold War ended three decades ago, at least in its most evident forms. The past cannot be measured instinctively or using definitive tools; as events become more distant, lines of research and questions slowly begin to emerge. The book offers a journey with many possible deviations in route: either shortcuts or longer pathways full of doubts and open questions. Italy has gone through various stages during the long postwar period, marked by continuity and progress and sometimes violent ruptures. This ongoing tension has bound the fate of a national community to a wider context, defined over time by the major transformations in historic processes extending far beyond the country's borders. And the national context has constantly been immersed in a network of constraints, relationships and interdependencies – a continuous building process made up of connections, limitations, aspirations and interests. As a result, once popular interpretations of a country with limited sovereignty, managed or directed by other countries hundreds of miles away – in Washington, Moscow, Brussels or Beijing – have fallen out of favour. And at the same time, from another viewpoint, the story of contemporary Italy following an autonomous and original trajectory, different from all others and everyone else, incomparable and in many cases even incomprehensible using the tools of historical analysis, has also disappeared. On the contrary, these uncertain times require ongoing connections and relationships that are irreversibly reshaping both the concept of Italy's subjection to the control of distant, obscure powers and that of a fully autonomous national ruling class. This is even more true when one connects the history of Italy, and the way it has been told, with the dynamics of the Cold War. The study of international relations in the 40 years following the Second World War has recently been reappraised and re-examined, in particular in international historiography. I am referring in particular to the debate over the cultural and economic Cold War, and the various forms of multilateralism that go beyond a simple East/West divide. I wonder how important the Mediterranean and the Middle East are, for example, for understanding Italian geopolitics in the second half of the twentieth century. As with all these contexts, the topic of sovereignty through space and time must consider the connection between national and international events.

Looking backwards from today can therefore be a useful way of expanding the points of reference available to us. Recounting Italy's history based on the issues of the present helps to put the various processes in sharper focus. This is the fourth point I would like to highlight. Thirty years on from 1989 and Italy's crisis of 1992–4, the period that ended in 2013 that I referred to earlier can no longer be called a ‘transition’; on the contrary, it must be seen as an autonomous space, in which the legacies of the past were paired with the choices made by the key figures in a phase of Italy's history that involved intense debate between two (or perhaps more) different concepts of nationhood. In this sense, Sorgonà is right to highlight the ambivalence of Berlusconi's role, with some aspects unique to Italy and other elements (such as the overlapping of economic and political power and the concentration of the media in the hands of the rich) that were less unusual than we have often tended to think. I believe the breaking down of the participatory spirit that occurred in the 1980s affected all political cultures, both the winners and losers of the Cold War. In Italy – in one of the paradoxes of the country's history – the latter ended up taking on a central role in the crisis of 1992. During this step, profound, structural changes took shape that surpassed even the analysis given in the historiographical summaries of the early 1990s, which focused particularly on the issue of institutional transformations and changes to the ‘rules of play’. Today we can ‘historicise Berlusconi’ and that phase of Italy's history based on an analysis of these underlying changes and the responses given both on the left and the right to the worries of this change in era, and also in light of how the era ended.

The fifth point that I think is worth underlining is the relationship between society and politics. Andrea Guiso is right to say that the separation of these two spheres has very deep roots, and reappears from time to time in various stages of Italy's history, from its unification onwards. And we must consider all aspects, including potentially critical aspects stemming from Italy's experiences of technocratic government over the last 30 years. Although this is an essential topic, I believe it must also be examined in context. The attempt to join the European project in the 1990s was part of an entirely political strategic plan within the battle between the two notions of Italy that took hold during the 1990s and 2000s, searching for a possible escape route from the country's crisis and a way to rise to the challenges of the new era of globalisation. The republic's latest responses during 2018 and 2019 fit this interpretation: the difficult search for answers following the major crisis that had struck a significant proportion of the West ten years earlier, and which directly involved Italy; the new globalisation, which is sweeping away any traces of reassuring certainty by causing upheaval both in the internal structures of individual countries and in global geopolitical balances as a whole; the loneliness of the ‘global person’, which has become a common and widespread paradigm; and the rise of new international powers, while the countries that industrialised earlier are experiencing increased internal inequalities and so struggling to maintain their traditional welfare systems.

All these factors – and many more, of course – help to explain the representation issues faced by traditional political forces in many Western countries, including France and Germany, nations where great popular traditions played a key role in the founding of the European project. The victory of the Brexit campaign, which once again questions the delicate balance between Great Britain and the rest of the continent, dealt a further blow to the idea of Europe we encountered in the decades following the end of the Second World War. In this context of large global changes, so-called sovereignist forces are finding new political ground (consider, for example, the alliance of central and eastern European countries known as the Visegrád Group), while principles that until a few years ago were taken for granted now risk being put back up for discussion. In Italy, new, emerging forces have also gained consensus by offering a break with the approaches of the past, with widespread promotion of political proposals that stem from the worries and fears of a new age. In many parts of the world, the old forms of democracy appear to be suffering, lacking perspective and unable to bolster their representation and stability. The debate revolves around one of the long-term cornerstones of the modern age: the exercising of sovereignty and its various forms. Over the course of modern history, and especially after the tragedies of the two world wars, various forms of democracy have been proposed and tested, both through nation states and supranational organisations, in a debate centred on the roles of nationhood, sovereignty and nationalism. The path towards the construction of Europe was the most ambitious response to these tensions: a shared story that sought peace and cooperation for future generations. It is no surprise that for a long time, before the pandemic struck, the European project was the main target for those who saw national sovereignty as an antidote and response to the crisis afflicting democracy, viewing the nation as a central paradigm and returning to the languages and key words of the past. In this context, the 2013 elections produced a turning point, a change of direction in which the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S) cemented its position and became the leading party in Italy. The bipolarity between the centre-left and centre-right progressively faded away, making way for a fragile and uncertain three-way structure. At the same time, the role and drive of the system's opponents grew stronger, increasingly including the Lega, which, from a party rooted in certain areas of northern Italy with strong support for independence, took on the function of the country's new right (with a sudden change in its key words and strategies). The question we often asked in the aftermath of the 2018 vote was whether the political offering was now based on three pillars representing similar percentages of the electorate (the centre-left, the centre-right and the M5S). But 2018 and 2019 saw two governments with very different structures and objectives, despite being led by the same prime minister and a parliament dominated by the M5S. It is as if the crisis in the forms of political representation pushed all the leading players towards new experiments.

In this context, once again, a global crisis has called into question the path along which the Italian political system seemed to be heading. This is the sixth point I would like to tackle. Covid-19 is not just a healthcare and economic crisis, it is also a (tragic) opportunity to look again at the ways sovereignty is organised, and the relationship between its internal and global dimensions, which is changing suddenly, and perhaps permanently. Europe is an essential part of Italy's potential recovery: in terms of the support and help it can provide (Next Generation EU), the opportunity it gives Italy to relaunch itself as a global player, and through the building of an original geopolitical framework. The appointment of Mario Draghi as prime minister must be seen within this context. The trust given to the new government in February 2021 raised expectations and hopes in several areas. The current situation is delicate and, in many ways, unusual: a wide-ranging and varied parliamentary majority that includes almost the entire constitutional arch on the one hand, and on the other the implicit and recurrent dominant role of the prime minister. Everything goes through Mario Draghi, every possible solution, every path of renewal, every avenue that could provide fresh thinking and options to the national community. The challenge will be reopening the communication channels, given that the power of a parliamentary majority does not equate to mass participation, and the costs of yet another setback would severely test the endurance of a system in freefall.

The parallels with episodes from Italy's distant and more recent past are back with a vengeance. Bold comparisons have been made with the years of reconstruction: a common effort to start again, the large-scale help provided by the Marshall Plan, the forms of collaboration and partnership between the internal framework of the newly formed republic and the international context of the Cold War. The years of reconstruction were kept in balance by the common ground of an evolving citizenship. The dual founding phase, which combined mass democracy and a bipolar conflict, was based on the ability to hold together political turning points and social processes, the role of political parties and widespread behaviours. This all came unstuck when the political powers limited their ability for inclusivity by twisting themselves into irreversible decline, and when civil society lost sight of the importance of putting the public interest above all else. The return of expertise to government may be an important sign at this time, turning the page on the idea of culture as something negative and ending the makeshift political system, with the emphasis instead on working for the collective good, smashing through the barriers of partisanship and highlighting the hollow nature of the previous ‘fresh starts’. The hallmarks of the postwar period remain in the choice of destinations for targeted investments: politics, institutions, technocrats and experts, all working on the urgent reconstruction project. Recovering a collective push and identifying a perspective that surpasses the narrow borders of the current crisis would send a small, yet important signal. Essentially, the pandemic has helped to clarify the profiles and weaknesses of egoistic and self-sufficient cultures; the perception of an uncontrollable risk and the shaping of a shared destiny for humanity has called into question the language of hate and abuse of power. The collective challenge of saving the nation described by President Sergio Mattarella has become instilled in the heart of Italian society, where individual responsibility (including in people's everyday actions) can be combined with a relaunch plan, a project for the future. Mario Draghi is not only a recognised authority figure with invaluable international expertise and a strong defender of European thinking (consider, for instance, his battles concerning the Euro) – although these are hugely important traits in themselves. His profile is also bolstered by the fact that he is acting at a time of shifting international balances, most notably the early stages of Biden's attempts to relaunch America, while Europe's structures appear shaken by the disruption caused by the Covid-19 crisis. We are heading for a sudden, inexorable transformation, where any remaining conservatism will be wiped away by competition with China and the drive of the emerging markets. And a space is opening up for those building hopes and opportunities, as happened at the dawn of the process of European integration in the aftermath of the two world wars.