Rosario Forlenza's Books

On the Edge of Democracy

Italy, 1943-1948

By: Rosario Forlenza

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On the Edge of Democracy examines the emergence of democracy in Italy in the wake of World War Two. It examines the nature of the democracy forged in the liminal period after Benito Mussolini, the Duce of Fascism, was removed from government in the summer of 1943. Instead of pouring through institutional accounts, which root the origins of democracy in the establishment of parties and in electoral outcomes, Forlenza focuses on the lived experiences of ordinary people and elites in extraordinary times. Meanings of democracy are not variations of a universal model but emerge as contingent interpretative acts and a symbolization following political and existential crisis under condition of violence and war. On the Edge of Democracy captures a series of key events which saw people torn between going home or staying at the front, between clinging to a disrespected but habitual monarchy or engaging with a republican experiment. Becoming a democracy was also a kind of politically spiritual act: the power of the myth of America and the struggle for order as a function of the cosmic fight between communism and ant-communism in the incipient Cold War had a formative power on the origins, meanings, and characters of post-fascist democracy in Italy.

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291

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

0192549588

ISBN 13

9780192549587

On the Edge of Democracy

Italy, 1943-1948

By: Rosario Forlenza

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On the Edge of Democracy

Italy, 1943-1948

By: Rosario Forlenza

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291

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192549588

ISBN 13

9780192549587

Italy's Christian Democracy

The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

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Italy's Christian Democracy

The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

The first comprehensive study of Italian Christian Democracy in English, Italy's Christian Democracy unravels the encounter between Catholicism and democracy from pre-unification Italy in the eighteenth century to the near-present. Forlenza and Thomassen put the triumphant emergence of the Christian Democratic political party that ruled Italy from 1948 to 1994 into historical perspective. With a focus on critical moments of modern Italian history – the Enlightenment and French Revolution, the Risorgimento, World War I, the fascist period, World War II, the post-war Republic – Italy's Christian Democracy demonstrates the often-dramatic ways in which Catholic thinkers, from laymen to priests and bishops, sought to interpret and direct democratic thought and practice in line with Catholic ethics. The Christian Democracy was much more than reactionary politics – namely a sincere attempt to integrate a religious worldview into modern politics. Contrary to a purely secular reading, the authors demonstrate that the Catholic embrace of political modernity and democracy emerged as a historically significant alternative to both fascism and socialism, liberalism and conservativism, attempting to re-anchor democracy, justice, and freedom in a religiously argued ethos. Italy's Christian Democracy contributes to existing scholarship by stressing two interrelated aspects crucial for a better understanding of the role that Catholicism and Christian Democracy have played in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the political dimension of transcendence and spirituality and the transformative power of historical experiences and events. The narrative considers the religious and spiritual impulse behind Christian democratic thought, framing Christian Democracy as a distinct form of "political spirituality". Offering a novel historical narrative, Italy's Christian Democracy stresses the contemporary relevance of the nexus between Christianity and modern politics: the current spread of identity politics and the increasing use of religion in political and public discourse, recently appropriated by new populist parties and movements, in Italy and beyond.

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397

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192603698

ISBN 13

9780192603692

Italian Modernities

Competing Narratives of Nationhood

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

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Italian Modernities

Competing Narratives of Nationhood

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

This book argues that Italy represents a privileged entry point into the comparative analysis of ideologies and experiences of modernity. The book compares how thinkers and politicians belonging to different ideological clusters - Liberalism, Communism, Fascism, Chistian Democracy - came to formulate multiple and often antagonistic visions of Italy's road to the modern. By revisiting Italian political history from the late nineteenth century until the present with a focus on transition periods, Italian Modernities explores how competing historical narratives influenced shifting understandings of Italian nationhood, thus foregrounding the active role of memory politics in the formulation of multiple modernities.

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301

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Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137492120

ISBN 13

9781137492128

Italian Modernities

Competing Narratives of Nationhood

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

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Italian Modernities

Competing Narratives of Nationhood

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

301

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137492120

ISBN 13

9781137492128

Italy's Christian Democracy

The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

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Italy's Christian Democracy

The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity

By: Rosario Forlenza,Bjørn Thomassen

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

397

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0192603698

ISBN 13

9780192603692

Book's by Rosario Forlenza

On the Edge of Democracy

On the Edge of Democracy

On the Edge of Democracy

On the Edge of Democracy

Italy's Christian Democracy

Italy's Christian Democracy

Italian Modernities

Italian Modernities

Italian Modernities

Italian Modernities

Italy's Christian Democracy

Italy's Christian Democracy

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