Kingdom of Italy - Historiography

Historiography

Most of the historiographical controversy centers on sharply conflicting interpretations of fascism and the Mussolini regime. From the 1920s writers on the left, following the lead of Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), stressed that fascism was a form of capitalism. The fascist regime controlled the writing and teaching of history through the central "Giunta Centrale per gli Studi Storici" and control of access to the archives and sponsored historians and scholars who were favorable toward it such as philosopher Giovanni Gentile and historians Gioacchino Volpe and Francesco Salata. In October 1932, it sponsored a large Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution, featuring its favored modernist art and asserting its own claims to express the spirit of Roman glory. After the war most historiography was intensely hostile to Mussolini, emphasizing the theme of fascism and totalitarianism. An exception was conservative historian Renzo De Felice (1929–96), whose 6,000 pages of biography (4 vol 1965-97) remains the most exhaustive examination of public and private documents and serves as a basic resource for all scholars. He argued that Mussolini was a revolutionary modernizer in domestic issues but a pragmatist in foreign policy who continued the Realpolitik policies of liberal Italy, 1861-1922. In the 1990s, a cultural turn began with studies that examined the issue of popular reception and acceptance of Fascism using the perspectives of 'aestheticization of politics' and 'sacralisation of politics'. By the 21st century the old "anti-Fascist" postwar consensus was under attack from a group of revisionist scholars who have presented a more favorable and nationalistic assessment of Mussolini’s role, both at home and abroad. Controversy rages as there is no consensus among scholars using competing interpretations based on revisionist, anti-Fascist, intentionalist, or culturalist models of history.