Volume 19 // The “Fin-de-siecle” Crisis (1880-1900)

Divided into dense essays on different subjects, this volume studies a complicated crisis of a unitary state happened from 1880 to 1900. In fact, those years saw the aggravation of all the Italian society contradictions that determined economic and political difficulties the new unitary state had to face. A capitalist development of Italy appeared late on the international stage remained, therefore, bound. The same was happening to economical and political decisions taken by the power classes. On the basis of Jacini’s investigation, those years witnessed a controversy between liberal and protectionist currents in the fields of agriculture and of industry. Protectionism brought to the alliance between the industrial bourgeoisie and land proprietors who founded a new power group that was pushing economy and state bodies  towards reconstruction and reforms. The ten years of Crispi dominated by the domestic and international political choice are characterized by the fall of the last historic Left wing that have existed from the Unification of Italy epoch. This new political group imposes its opinions to the society causing dramatic clashes and fights, from Sicilian Fasci to the year 1898 in Milan with Bava Beccaris’s guns and coup-d’etat endeavors, sign of the bourgeois reaction. These “fin de siecle” battles show also elements of renewal of the society and the flourishing of new forms of democratic forces. This period can be remembered for the workers’ movement came to life together with its theoretic and political organization and development and for the birth of a catholic movement divided into the intransigent and the joining-new-reality followers together with the development of the two on the Italian stage.

SUMMARY

The beginning of the Italian capitalism
Roberto Romano

Jacini’s Investigation
Idomeneo Baladon

A Working Movement from Bakunin to the foundation of the Italian socialist party
Maurizio Antonioli

Antonio Labriola and the origin of marxism in Italy
Mario Spinella

The ten years of Crispi
Salvatore Massimo Ganci

Sicilian Fasci
Salvatore Massimo Ganci

The “Rerum Novarum” and the Catholic movement
Camillo Brizzi

Benedetto Croce
Emilio Agazzi

The crisis of 1898
Umberto Levra