Volume 20 // Giolitti’s Italy

Characterized by an extreme clarity of exposition and by a rich analysis proposed in shrewd essays, this volume offers a series of innovative contributions to the understanding of the key period of the Italian history dominated by the figure of Giovanni Giolitti. The result is the panoramic view on the beginning of the Twentieth century that highlights the transformation of the Italian capitalism with its development of big companies, monopolies and financial institutions having an argued role of great mixed banks. We deal with an industrial boom that, followed by a euphoria in politics, will gradually remove the consciousness of a geographical and structural gap between the North and the South which used to be a foundation of the incredible richness of the close-to-the-government bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, even leaving unchanged the Italian social and economic dualism, Giolitti’s politics will open new horizons and new possibilities of democratic dialectics, studied efficiently by the authors of this volume, analyzing the dynamic emerging in the movement of peasants and workers who asked for reforms and in new social and catholic peripheral forms connected to it. A large space is given to the complex social “universe” and to its currents, to its theoretical and political limits in the field of a class representation, in a relationship with the government forces, in a context of deep transformations. The volume also shows the less known and often neglected aspects of reality, such as female emancipation of the epoch.

SUMMARY

Giolitti and giolittism
Aldo Alessandro Mola

Industrialization in Giolitti’s Age
Roberto Romano

Big companies and financial concentration
Duccio Bigazzi

“Pirelli” and “Fiat” companies on the global market
Duccio Bigazzi

Women’s conditions and emancipation movement
Annarita Buttafuoco

Socialism and peasants’ movement
Alberto De Bernardi

Reformist socialism
Idomoneo Barbadoro, Piera Galbiati

Salvemini, great reforms and southern peasants
Alessandro Roveri

Socialist Left Wing
Paolo Favilli

From democratic Christians to Gentiloni’s pact
Filippo Mazzonis

Antigiolittian groups
Umberto Sereni