Politics, Society and Economy in Italy: From the Reconstruction to the Advent of Berlusconi (1960-2009)



This course will study the changes in the Italian political system and the cultural transformations from the birth of the Republic to the advent of Silvio Berlusconi. Special emphasis will be given to Catholicism and to the political parties that rose from the fall of Fascism. The role of the economic boom, internal emigration, terrorism and the end of ideologies will be examined. We will also study the end of the first republish, the rise of the second republic and the new parties that emerged from the political crisis. The course will end with a close study of the rise of Berlusconi and the new parties.



Required texts:

Aurelio Lepre, Storia della prima Repubblica. L’Italia dal 1942 al 1992, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1993, pp. 157-342. ISBN-88-15-04062-5



Silvio Lanaro, Storia dell’Italia repubblicana. Dalla fine della guerra agli anni novanta, Marsilio, Venezia, 1993, pp. 221-451. ISBN-88-317-5403-3



Guido Crainz, Storia del miracolo italiano: culture, identità, trasformazioni fra anni Cinquanta e Sessanta, Donzelli, Roma, 2005, pp. 273. ISBN 88-7989-945-7



Luigi Lotti, I partiti della Repubblica. La politica in Italia dal 1946 al 1997, Le Monnier, Firenze, 1998. (Photocopies to be distributed in class)



(Photocopies on “berlusconismo” will be provide).