Excavating Modernity—The Roman Past in Fascist Italy

While the centrality of classical Roman imagery in Italian fascism is widely recognized, it is frequently dismissed as mere theater intended to mask fascism's lack of ideological coherence. Arthurs (history, West Virginia U.) challenges such views, arguing that the appropriation of the Roman past was a central aspect of Italian fascism's encounter with modernity, domestically providing a model of cultural homogeneity and political unity and precedent for fascism's ideals of state power, organization of mass culture, and the role of the transformative leader, while simultaneously serving as a reflection of Italian fascism's visions of civilizational supremacy and colonial empire. In addition to describing the articulation of Italian fascism's romanita and its uses by the state, he also analyzes how it was negotiated between the political leadership and the scholarly community and the implications of these negotiations for the productions of Italian scholarship. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)