Simon Levis Sullam’s monograph aptly traces a strident, productive lineage between the figure of Giuseppe Mazzini and the political ideology of the Fascist regime. The book aims to answer some key questions about the role Mazzini played across two centuries, as well as to show how he acted as a mediator across divergent political forces and groups, while also being able to maintain an ideological and political stance exceededing that of the father of the nation. Sullam answers these questions by ‘reconstructing certain central aspects of Mazzini’s thought and by examining certain examples of the high regard in which he was held’ (p. 2). The larger issue at stake is, however, the relationship between the Risorgimento and the regime, and their forms of continuity and rupture. In this respect, the chapters following on from the clear introduction thematically scrutinise precisely such possible continuities within a discontinous historical periodisation (Risorgimento, Fascism, anti-fascism). As the author states, his analysis moves across the forms in which the imposing figure of Mazzini has been ideologically appropriated. He continues: ‘What I mean by ideology is, on the one hand […], a series of cultural and conceptual elements that define a given political project or tendency; on the other hand, it is a vision that […] contains a distorting element, since it is used […] to serve a specific political vision or programme’. This is a fitting definition for evaluating political appropriations, for it accounts for both the practical and the abstract sides of ideologies.

The book is divided into five main chapters. The first analyses Mazzini’s political reflections on the specific relationship between nation and religion, as foundational to the social and political idea of Risorgimento and of European unity that the Italian intellectual cherished. Such a connection is, of course, the same connection that Emilio Gentile (and George Mosse) identified as being active in the definition of a modern dictatorship. Chapter 2, ‘From Poetry to Prose’, outlines the transition from the late nineteenth century to the nationalist policies of the 1910s. Francesco Crispi relied heavily on the idea of Italy’s duties and ‘national mission’, which promoted the image of Italy as unified and ready to be the Third Rome. At the same time, he proclaimed that religious faith was connected to a need on the part of the civil population to submit to higher powers, and in this way he subverted the idea of civic freedom that Mazzini unequivocally championed. Such ideas were then redeployed by Carducci and Pascoli’s ‘Grande Proletaria’ (chapter 3) and by Alfredo Oriani, in an attempt at recapturing the symbolic glory of the nation and its right to sit at the same table as the other major nations.

Chapter 3 looks at Mazzini’s presence in and influence on the politics of Umbertine Italy. As Levis Sullam demonstrates, the closer one gets to the establishment of the regime, the more obvious the religious tones of Mazzini’s thought become. The process of the sacralisation of politics to the will of a superior entity – which exceeds rationalising powers – starts to surface in the years before the First World War and is later echoed in Georges Sorel and Giovanni Papini’s ode to violence as a political instrument. It is, therefore, not difficult to see how one moves from nationalism to fascism. The appropriation of the figure of Mazzini had many ramifications. As Levis Sullam explains, it was a key driver in Mussolini’s departure from socialism and in his position of interventionism. Mazzini is pivotal in the development of fascist ideology because of the association this ideology fosters between the need for authority and the call for the freedom of the masses. Authority and mass culture are nonetheless and quintessentially the pillars of the age of totalitarianism. The last chapter returns to the idea of the nation and its anti-fascist rebirth, together with the desire for a free Italy and for the liberation of the people.

As the chapter outline shows, Simon Levis Sullam weaves together seamlessly the different moments of Italian history that are suffused with the presences, again real or symbolic, of Mazzini. With the support of a plethora of textual references and data, the reader can follow the development of a political history and of a political thought that encapsulates the widespread presence of Mazzini. To the great credit of Levis Sullam the book does more than this: it shows how we can conceptualise the idea of a symbolic presence through the hard facts of history and across diverse disciplinary fields (poetry, prose, political essays, journal articles). Mazzini’s legacy and presence is controversial, and of course it would be at the level of the symbolic; but (and this is a very important concluding point) this legacy also fails to be constructively present in the process of building a civil religion across the Italian nation and later the nation-state. The reasons are numerous and in many ways are well-known (the Church, the linguistic and geographical divides), but the interesting aspect – devoid of any judgment – of how Mazzini travelled through time lies in Levis Sullam’s choice to trace the ways in which a figure is moulded, created and adopted symbolically, and thus not authentically. My only theoretical reservation concerns the book’s attempt to create a genealogy with a linear pathway. I am not convinced we can still accept the notion of influence, or even worse, of causality, because influence attributes negative connotations to the ideas of controversy and contradiction which are fundamental to our understanding of reality and subjectivity. I would simply see Giuseppe Mazzini as a multi-layered presence within the narratives this book weaves together.