Journeys Through Fascism

Burdett (Italian studies, Bristol U., UK) surveys a range of travel writings (and foreign correspondence) produced by Italians during the Fascist period, much of it produced by figures connected to the national dailies. He applies the critical perspectives of Edward Said's Orientalism and other post-colonial critical works in order to show how the texts in question were part of larger discursive frameworks of identity and demographic expansion and also to show how many of the concepts at the core of Italian Fascist ideology-- the myth of Roman dominance, the supremacy of Italian civilization, the irresistibility of collective action, and the deification of the leader--were expressed and elaborated in these writings. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Charles Burdett, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies, specializes on Italian culture under Fascism. He is the author of Vincenzo Cardarelli and his Contemporaries (Oxford University Press, 1999). He is the editor with Claire Gorrara and Helmut Peitsch of European Memories of the Second World War (Berghahn Books, 1999) and with Derek Duncan, of Cultural Encounters: European Travel Writing of the 1930s (Berghahn Books, 2002).