Contemporary History

This special issue addresses the possible connections and mutual benefits of examining together two analytic concepts – memory and periphery. These concepts receive much attention in various scholarly discussions, yet they have done so rather independently from each other. The potential applications and utilities of combining memory and periphery and the epistemic insights they provide for various disciplins are presented in the different contributions to this issue.

The most original and shocking interpretation of Lucretius in the last 40 years.

Thomas Nail argues convincingly and systematically that Lucretius was not an atomist, but a thinker of kinetic flux. In doing so, he completely overthrows the interpretive foundations of modern scientific materialism, whose philosophical origins lie in the atomic reading of Lucretius' immensely influential book De Rerum Natura.

This means that Lucretius was not the revolutionary harbinger of modern science as Greenblatt and others have argued; he was its greatest victim. Nail re-reads De Rerum Natura to offer us a new Lucretius--a Lucretius for today.

La scuola italiana è un volume che ripercorre le tappe fondamentali dell’istruzione scolastica e universitaria dalle origini dello Stato unitario fino alla recente riforma della “Buona Scuola”. Le due sezioni del volume analizzano in particolare sia l’aspetto giuridico delle varie riforme, sia l’aspetto amministrativo, con particolare riguardo al corpo docente e alla sua immissione in ruolo. Il volume comprende inoltre i più recenti aggiornamenti analitici e statistici dell’Ocse (Settembre 2017) e del Censis, fornendo un quadro documentale completo ed esauriente della realtà educativa italiana nel più ampio contesto internazionale.

Megaproject Planning and Management: Essential Readings contains the seminal articles from the growing body of research on megaproject planning and management along with an original introduction by the editor, Bent Flyvbjerg. The leading and most cited authority in the field, Flyvbjerg has used crowdsourcing and 25 years of experience to cherry-pick from several hundred articles and books the writings that define the field. This volume will be an indispensable source for those wishing to speak with authority about how megaprojects are prepared, delivered, and fought over. The target audience is students, academics, practitioners, and media pundits alike, as well as communities affected by megaprojects.

Socialist Yugoslavia was a country suspended between traditional cultures, competing concepts of modernization, and rivaling Cold War blocs. As a result, it produced a diverse body of architecture that defies easy classification and blurs the lines between the established categories of modernism. This book explores the historical “in-betweenness” of Yugoslav modernism and the strategies architects used to mediate different—sometimes directly opposed—concepts of culture and architecture. Surveyed here is a wide range of topics: from city building and state representation, to the typologies of everyday life. Also discussed is the work of Yugoslavia’s leading architects, who transformed their in-betweenness into a new quality: Edvard Ravnikar’s seamless blending of such varied influences as Jože Plečnik, Le Corbusier, and Otto Wagner; Bogdan Bogdanović’s war memorials, which filtered deep-seated cultural archetypes through the lens of Surrealism; Juraj Neidhardt’s efforts at forging a modern identity for Bosnia based on the vernacular Ottoman heritage; and Vjenceslav Richter’s neo-avant-garde experiments, which provided some of the most convincing representations of Yugoslav socialism. Wolfgang Thaler photographs document these and many other stand-out achievements.

1. Le foibe: di cosa stiamo parlando Era per fatti come questo che le foibe, piccole o grandi che fossero, emanavano un vapore sottile di pegola e di sventura, quasi che dal loro fondo continuasse a venir su un fumo di zolfo, come nelle fumarole vulcaniche. Con il calore grande dell'estate, quando l'aria tremava sulle rocce e sulle colline, anche adesso chiunque avrebbe giurato che dalla foiba grande uscisse un vapore. Qualcuno sosteneva che dall'inghiottitoio sortisse anche un lungo ansito, in qualche modo, prevalentemente nei mesi del freddo, quasi che le foibe fossero polmoni della terra, che generassero respiri emessi da un dinosauro antidiluviano, sepolto vivo lì sotto 1. Se ne è fatto un gran parlare ma senza sapere bene quale sia il vero oggetto storico sotteso al comune discorrere. In anni recenti una parola ha assunto un significato denso ed evocativo per una intera società, quella italiana e, pur tuttavia, non chiaro né condiviso. Intorno alla parola stessa, apparentemente oscura come i fatti che richiama, si è ingenerata una battaglia politica, ancora non conclusasi. Nell'intendimento, per parte di chi l'ha condotta, di recuperare alla cognizione collettiva una memoria che si voleva appannata; ma anche di usarla come strumento di lotta politica. Si è ripetutamente detto, in più sedi, che la storia è pubblica per definizione e il contestarne il suo uso collettivo è, in fondo, un non senso. Il problema, quindi, non è l'uso, il ricorso ad essa, ma il suo abuso. Ma fermiamoci a questa iniziale considerazione poiché bisogna prima di tutto dire, pronunciare la parola per poi definire quel che, intorno al fenomeno storico che essa esprime, si è articolato nel passato e si manifesta nel presente. Ovvero quanto è veramente successo e che cosa di ciò – e, soprattutto, come – oggi preserviamo ricordo. Il termine in questione è quello di «foiba», più comunemente e preferibilmente usato al suo plurale, «foibe» per l'appunto. Termine mutuato e recepito dal linguaggio, in sé asettico e neutro, delle scienze della terra. La parola deriva dal latino fověa, letteralmente «fossa». Si tratta di caverne a grande sviluppo verticale, presenti in tutto il territorio che va dal Carso goriziano e triestino alla Carniola Interna e all'Istria, con una disposizione a pozzo, alcune a imbuto rovesciato, altre ad imbuto regolare. Sono quindi insenature naturali, inghiottitoi che precipitano per decine di metri, se non più. All'apice si presentano come fenditure, frequentemente non visibili o identificabili ad occhio umano se non attraverso una attenta ricerca. L'ingresso è infatti coperto da vegetazione locale e, per certi aspetti, almeno da un punto di vista fenomenologico, sembra richiamare i crepacci che si formano nelle grosse agglomerazioni di ghiaccio in alta montagna. Anche se nulla hanno a che fare con questi ultimi, le foibe sembrano condividerne una nascosta pericolosità. Chi non si accerta della loro presenza rischia, in alcuni casi, di caderci dentro. Al fondo di esse si accumulano materiali rocciosi, si formano depositi di scarichi naturali e artificiali o scorrono ruscelli sotterranei. Geologicamente le foibe sono il prodotto di degradazioni, ovvero di trasformazioni del terreno dovute ad un insieme di fenomeni di decomposizione chimica, fisica e meccanica che provocano alterazione, disgregazione e disfacimento delle rocce e dei terreni dai quali deriva una facile erosione. Le foibe sono uno dei più appariscenti fenomeni carsici, voragini naturali di diverse dimensioni. Fin qui il dato nella sua fisicità, nella sua naturale manifestazione. Perché luoghi di tal genere sono divenuti oggetto di controversia politica? La risposta ci è sinteticamente fornita da Tristano Matta, ricercatore triestino:

The Vlachs speak a language that evolved from Latin. Latin was transmitted by Romans to many peoples and was used as an international language for centuries. Most Vlach populations live in and around the borders of modern Greece. The word "Vlachs" appears in the Byzantine documents at about the 10 th century, but few details are connected with it and it is unclear it means for various authors. It has been variously hypothesized that Vlachs are descendants of Roman soldiers, Thracians, diaspora Romanians, or Latinized Greeks. However, the ethnic makeup of the empires that ruled the Balkans and the use of the language as a lingua franca suggest that the Vlachs do not have one single origin.

L’article a pour sujet la personnalité extraordinaire du kabbaliste le Rabbin Levi Isaac Krakovsky (1891–1966), un des étudiants oubliés du Rabbin Yehuda Leib Ashlag (1885–1955). Krakovsky diffusait l’enseignement de son maître en Amérique en anglais, écrivait des douzaines de livres et essayait d’établir des yeshivot de Kabbalistes. Contrairement à son maître, il présentait un enseignement exotérique et une vision de diffusion de la Kabbale dans le monde entier. Son influence était minime, mais un de ses élèves était Shraga Philip Berg qui continuait son chemin et le complétait de plusieurs points de vue. L’article se base sur de riches matières archivales, parmi lesquelles de longues essays de l’auteur en manuscrit qui sont décrits ici pour la premiere fois. D’une telle façon, nous décrivons le dévelopment de la Kabbale en Amérique du début du vingtième siècle jusqu’ aujourd’hui.

This research analyses the historical events of the commited massacres during the Spanish Civil War focusing on various fundamental topics. The ongoing debate generated around the Historical Memory is related to the evolution of the specialized historiography. The study also reflects the motivations of both factions for appealing violence and the methods they applied. Subsequently the massacres commited in particular Spanish regions were analysed to show, finally, the problems faced by the historian discussing such a delicate subject.

This paper analyzes the involvement of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Nazi genocide during World War II in Ukraine. The issue of the political rehabilitation of these organizations became one of the central political issues in this post-Soviet state. The research question is whether leaders and members of the Bandera faction of the OUN (OUN-B) and the UPA were involved in the Nazi-led genocide. This article devotes particular attention to Volhynia where the UPA was established by the OUN-B in 1943. The study analyzes the biographies of 329 OUN-B and UPA leaders and documents concerning the OUN-B and the UPA, local police, and Nazi mass executions of Jews, Ukrainians, and Poles from the State Archive of the Volyn Region, the State Archive of the Rivne Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine in the Volyn Region, the Archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine, the National Archives in the US, and other archives. This paper shows that large proportions of leaders and members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army served in various police and militia formations, collaborated with security and intelligence agencies of Nazi Germany, and took part in the Nazi genocide, primarily in assisting roles during mass executions of Jews in the first two years of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

Il seguente elaborato ha l’obiettivo di approfondire il profilo culturale e politico dei gruppi della destra extraparlamentare italiana fra la seconda metà degli anni ’40 e il 1969, ripercorrendo la loro storia a partire dalla nascita del Movimento sociale italiano. La prima metà della tesi è incentrata sulla storia del partito della fiamma, prendendo in considerazione l’origine, lo sviluppo e le tre principali segreterie che si susseguirono nel corso degli anni. Questi capitoli tengono conto in particolare del contesto in cui si sviluppò la vicenda del più grande e importante partito della destra italiana del secondo dopoguerra, del milieu culturale e generazionale che vi militò  e, infine, delle varie correnti che negli anni ’50, innescarono una frattura ideologica insanabile con il partito.

This paper focuses on the current survival of a form of historical memory in Spain which dates back to the nineteenth century. The prevailing form of Spanish national identity at that time was completely dependent on Catholicism. The notion of Reconquista consolidated across the 19th century in terms of a national liberation struggle against invading Muslims. This highly biased approach peaked throughout Franco's dictatorship, the heyday of National Catholicism and, while it holds true it declined upon the 1978 arrival of democracy, the Reconquista paradigm nevertheless remains currently a key concept in the most conservative Spanish academic outlets.

Back cover text: Megaprojects and Risk provides the first detailed examination of the phenomenon of megaprojects. It is a fascinating account of how the promoters of multi-billion dollar megaprojects systematically and self-servingly misinform parliaments, the public and the media in order to get projects approved and built. It shows, in unusual depth, how the formula for approval is an unhealthy cocktail of underestimated costs, overestimated revenues, undervalued environmental impacts and overvalued economic development effects. This results in projects that are extremely risky, but where the risk is concealed from MPs, taxpayers and investors. The authors not only explore the problems but also suggest practical solutions drawing on theory, experience and hard, scientific evidence from the several hundred projects in twenty nations and five continents that illustrate the book. Accessibly written, it will be the standard reference for students, scholars, planners, economists, auditors, politicians and interested citizens for many years to come.

In this engaging and insightful new treatise, Charles Green and Anthony Gardner examine in depth the history and popularization of large-scale international survey exhibitions, or “biennials,” and their impact on contemporary art since the 1950s. From the 1972 director-driven documenta 5 at Kassel to the rise of mega-exhibitions across Asia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the renewed ascendancy of gargantuan biennials in the twenty-first century, Biennials, Triennials, and documenta offers a comprehensive history of biennialization that is global in scope. In addition to interrogating specific curatorial models and methods, Green and Gardner use the history of biennials as a means of illustrating and inciting further discussions of globalization in contemporary art.
With a comprehensive global array of case studies seamlessly connected through shrewd narrative analysis, this innovative new book will be essential reading for curatorial and museum studies students and scholars, aspiring curators, gallerists, and all those interested in the exhibition of contemporary art.

Available through Wiley-Blackwell, May 2016

Quella che segue è una presentazione antologica della II edizione di A cent'anni dalla Rivoluzione d'Ottobre. In difesa del socialismo reale e del marxismo-­leninismo. I contenuti offerti in questa presentazione sono i seguenti: ­ Indice generale; ­ Introduzione tecnica (prefazioni e varie); ­ Introduzione teorico­-politica: le basi del marxismo-­leninismo; ­ il capitolo 5 (L'URSS e il socialismo in un solo paese); ­ il capitolo 10 (La lotta di classe mondiale tra il 1933 e il 1945); ­ le bibliografie di ogni singolo tomo.

Darko Darovec

HISTOIRE BRÈVE DE L’ISTRIE

Forum, Udine 2010

RÉSUMÉ

L’auteur nous brosse un tableau des plus importants changements politiques, administratifs et ethniques enregistrés dans la péninsule istrienne. Il constate, par exemple, que les premiers habitants desquels existent notices certaines ont été les Histres, qui à la péninsule ont donné son nom. En 178 av. J.-C. ils ont été battus et soumis par les Romains. En 476 aux Romains ont succédé les Goths, ensuite les Byzantins (en 539) et les Francs (en 788). Sous la domination des empereurs du Saint Empire Romain Allemand, la région a été incluse dans plusieurs groupements politiques et administratifs, principautés et comtés, jusqu’à devenir vers 1060 à son tour un margraviat autonome. Ses seigneurs étaient les Patriarches de Aquilée, qui ont assumée aussi tout le pouvoir spirituel et ont été destitués seulement en 1420 par l’expansion de l’influence vénitienne sur une grande partie de la péninsule. Sa partie centrale, la soi-disant Comté de Pazin, est resté sous la domination des Hasbourg de 1374 à la chute de Venise en 1797. La période napoléonienne a apporté des changements profonds dans le domaine social et administratif. La conséquence directe des conquêtes napoléoniennes a été la domination autrichienne sur l’Istrie, durée plus d’un siècle (de 1797 à 1806 et de 1813 à 1918). Après la première guerre mondiale, l’Istrie est passée sous la domination de l’Italie, qui toutefois après la seconde guerre mondiale a gardé seulement une partie très petite de la région (les villes de Muggia et San Dorligo), alors que la Slovénie a eu les arrondissements de Koper, Izola, Piran et Podgrad, et la partie restante, plus grande, l’a obtenu la Croatie.
À travers les siècles a changé aussi l’organisation géografique-administrative de l’Istrie. Au temps des Romains et au Moyen Age l’Istrie comprend le territoire au sud des fleuves Timav et Vipava, de Mont Trstenik – près de Postojna – et Mont Snežnik, jusqu’à le fleuve Rasa et le golfe du Kvarner. Au VI et VII siècle, avec le terme Istrie il était usage d’indiquer tous les territoires byzantins dans le haut-Adriatique (Istrie, Aquilée et Venise). Plus tard, avec la désagrégation intervenue à l’époque de la féodalité en plein développement (de XI au XIII siècle) et au bas Moyen Age (du XIV au XV siècle), l’Istrie a vu réduire son territoire jusqu’à rester restreinte dans les limites du margraviat existant déja du temps des seigneurs allemands et plus tard sous la domination autrichienne jusqu’à XIX siècle. En ce temps-là ses limites septentrionaux concordaient avec ceux des communes de Muggia, San Dorligo et Podgrad, là où la frontière tourne vers Rijeka. Trieste est resté hors du territoire administratif de l’Istrie jusqu’à X siècle. Depuis la moitié du XI siècle est entré à faire partie de l’Istrie aussi le territoire à l’est du fleuve Rasa jusqu’à Trsat. Après la seconde guerre mondiale, habituellement on admet que l’Istrie commence par la commune de Koper.
Les siècles de l’histoire istrienne sont caractérisés de nombreux changements etniques, dictés par les événements politiques et économiques. Presque sept siècles de domination romaine ont apporté à une costante colonisation, c’est-à-dire à un transfert de population des régions italiques a’autres régions conquises par les Romains. Ainsi la population autochtone a été complètement romanisée. Un autre changement ethnigue, décisif pour l’Istrie, a été l’arrivée des Slaves dans les Balkans au VI siècle. Dans les siècles suivants les Slaves ont déchaussé la population romane qui de toute façon a continué à augmenter par l’arrivée de nouveaux immigrés des régions italiques. Le moment décisif pour le dessus des Slaves est sorti des pressions provenantes de l’est et en partie aussi des conditions difficiles de vie en Istrie (maladies endemiques, épidémies et guerres) qui ont permis de survivre seulement à la partie plus résistante de la population.
Les pressions provenantes de l’est (la défense et la fuite devant les turcs) a exercé une influence sur la définition des limites nationaux entre les principaux populations slaves de l’Istrie, les Slovènes et les Croates. Déjà à partir du dernièr siècle, les experts de différentes matières humanistes fixaient la ligne de démarcation entre les deux groupes ethniques sur le fleuve Dragonja. Les Italiens au contraire étaient en majorité dans les centres commerciaux de la côte et formaient ainsi une étroite bande mononationale le long de la côte istrienne. Dans le domaine économique l’artisanat et le commerce des villes l’emportaient sur l’agriculture de l’hinterland. D’ici dérivent aussi les différences patrimoniales et culturelles entre les Italiens et les populations slaves istriennes, qui par l’évolution de la situation au siècle passé et dans notre siècle ont fait exploder les nationalismes et les haines entre les ethnies, lesquelles ont abouti en exodes de la population.

Premio Sele d’Oro Mezzogiorno, riconoscimento speciale, 7 settembre 2013. "Il volume si inserisce nell’ambito di una lunga tradizione storiografica tesa a inquadrare il problema del Mezzogiorno nell’età della Restaurazione nel contesto, ampio e complesso, dei mutamenti di ordine politico internazionale, economico e culturale che intervengono nell’insieme del quadro europeo. L’incrocio di fonti archivistiche inedite, costituite da relazioni e corrispondenze dei diplomatici inglesi presenti a Napoli tra il 1816 e il 1840, con le testimonianze di viaggiatori e scrittori anglosassoni che percorrono le strade del Regno in quello stesso arco di tempo, conduce alla scoperta di un Sud che prolunga e modifica i percorsi di immaginario già tracciati dal Grand Tour settecentesco. In un duplice gioco di rispecchiamenti e sovrapposizioni, da un lato le voci dei viaggiatori si coagulano in forme stereotipe che fanno da presupposto nel giudizio e nei comportamenti della diplomazia di Londra, dall’altro la visione del Mezzogiorno si fissa non tanto per ciò che essa effettivamente è, ma per ciò che risulta funzionale sia agli orizzonti di immaginario della società anglosassone sia alle strategie internazionali della politica inglese.
INDICE :

INTRODUZIONE DI ANTONINO DE FRANCESCO

I CAPITOLO: REGNO DELLE DUE SICILIE E RESTAURAZIONE
1.Il Sud immaginato: tra mito, realtà e stereotipo
2.Napoli magica e lussuriosa, Napoli pericolosa
3.Le tre Italie

II CAPITOLO: LA PERCEZIONE DEL SUD NEGLI ANNI RIVOLUZIONARI
1.Borboni, settari, briganti e lazzaroni tra diari di viaggio e corrispondenza diplomatica
2.Lo sguardo dei diplomatici: il re, la rivoluzione e la spia Carbone
3.Voci controcorrente

III CAPITOLO: IL MEZZOGIORNO TRA MALCONTENTO, INDIFFERENZA E ASSENZA
1.Il Regno nei dispacci al Foreign Office
2.La Napoli indifferente di Lord Grenville
3.Il governo della 'morte dei talenti'

IV CAPITOLO: GLI INGLESI E IL TERMOMETRO DELLA LIBERTA'
1.Il Sud tra 'napoletanità', nazionalità e libertà
2.Dalle pietre all'uomo
3.I 're-bambini' e la città degli incanti e degli inganni

INDICE DELLE FONTI
BIBLIOGRAFIA
INDICE DEI NOMI
"

Beyond the Italian Communist Party: the “Stella Rossa” movement and dissident groups in the Italian resistance

In the months following the 8th of September 1943 the extremist and revolutionary demands were abandoned by the official line of the Italian Communist Party (pci) for being assumed and reaffirmed by a minority – but not less effective - component of the left wing. In Turin the dissidence arose with the birth of the Integral Communist Party, better known as “Stella Rossa”, a movement with Stalinist origin that imposed itself over the political panorama using a widespread intervention in the factories and that attracted the local working class. Between the left wing opponents to the pci, “Stella Rossa” was the most worrying for the communist leadership, enough to force a direct comparison that led to drastic steps. Indeed, in 1944, the party commissioned the murder of a “Stella Rossa” leader and invested most of its political actions in the reintegration of the organization. This last step took place in the first few months of 1945.

Key words: Italian Communist Party, resistance, dissident groups, “Stella Rossa”.

Oltre il pci: il movimento "Stella Rossa" e i gruppi dissidenti nella Resistenza italiana

Nei mesi immediatamente successivi all'8 settembre 1943 le rivendicazioni oltranziste e rivoluzionarie abbandonate dalla linea ufficiale del Partito Comunista Italiano furono assunte e ribadite da una componente minoritaria, ma non per questo meno incisiva, della sinistra. A Torino la dissidenza si espresse con la nascita del Partito Comunista Integrale (meglio noto come “Stella Rossa”), un movimento di matrice stalinista che si impose sul panorama politico cittadino con un capillare intervento nelle fabbriche e una discreta forza attrattiva nei confronti della classe operaia. Tra le opposizioni di sinistra al pci fu quella che impensierì maggiormente la dirigenza comunista, tanto da costringerla a un confronto diretto che portò a misure drastiche. Nel 1944 il partito commissionò infatti l'omicidio di un dirigente di “Stella Rossa” e impegnò buona parte della sua azione politica sul territorio torinese nel tentativo di riassorbire l'organizzazione, cosa che avvenne nei primi mesi del 1945.

Parole chiave: Partito Comunista Italiano, Resistenza, gruppi dissidenti, “Stella Rossa”.

Este livro é um contributo para a expansão dos estudos de informações e de segurança na Universidade, realizado na perspectiva da História do Presente e sobretudo através da aplicação da técnica da open sources intelligence (osint), reunindo uma selecção de cerca de 230 artigos publicados semanalmente entre 2004 e 2007, de modo ininterrupto, em dois meios de comunicação social de grande tiragem: num jornal económico diário e numa revista semanal de actualidades. No jornal tratava-se de uma coluna intitulada "Informações Estratégicas" e na revista de uma página intitulada "Fronteiras", a qual, para além do artigo, continha também uma secção designada "Secretas" com três notícias breves sobre serviços de informações estrangeiros ou com estes relacionadas.

La convinzione che il lavoro dello storico debba assolvere una irrinunciabile, salvifica funzione etico-civile non è certo rara nell’Accademia.
Il filo rosso che attraversa i saggi riprodotti nel volume rimanda invece a un’altra concezione del lavoro storico, probabilmente minoritaria tra gli addetti ai lavori ma non per questo, riteniamo, meno legittima, concezione che rifiuta l’idea che l’attività di ricerca debba prefiggersi obiettivi extrascientifici.
Secondo tale concezione, lo storico, nell’esercizio della sua professione, deve ripudiare ogni torsione funzionalista e strumentale della ricerca, ogni suggestione etico-pedagogica.
Deve respingere ogni blandizia e lusinga provenienti da chi gli volesse commissionare compiti terapeutici, di rigenerazione e legittimazione di sistemi politico-istituzionali.
Lo storico, se veramente tale, non deve partecipare, a parer nostro, ad alcun processo di nation building. Né costruttore di identità né dispensatore di virtù civiche, deve anzi correre il rischio che il proprio lavoro possa rivelare una contraddizione, insanabile, tra le esigenze della professione storica e i doveri civici discendenti dall’appartenenza a una comune cittadinanza.
The belief that the work of the historian is to fulfill an ethical and civic function is certainly not rare within the Academy.
The thread that runs through the essays reproduced in this volume refers to a different conception of the historical work, instead: though probably in the minority among the experts, we believe this conception, rejecting the idea that research must serve extra-scientific goals, to be equally legitimate.
Accordingly, the historian, in the exercise of his profession, must repudiate any ethical-pedagogical suggestion; he should reject any blandishment and flattery from those who would want to commission him therapeutic tasks, aimed at regenerating and legitimizing political and institutional systems. The historian, if truly such, should not take part, in our opinion, in any process of nation building. Neither a creator of identity nor a promoter of civic virtues, he must indeed take the risk that his work may reveal an irreconcilable contradiction between his professional duties and the civic obligations deriving from belonging to a common citizenship.
Luca Tedesco è Professore associato in Storia contemporanea presso l’Università degli Studi Roma Tre.

The Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias (HM Treasury 2003) with reference to the Review of Large Public Procurement in the UK (Mott MacDonald 2002) notes that there is a demonstrated, systematic, tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic and that to redress this tendency appraisers should make explicit, empirically based adjustments to the estimates of a project’s costs, benefits, and duration. HM Treasury recommends that these adjustments be based on data from past projects or similar projects elsewhere, and adjusted for the unique characteristics of the project in hand. In the absence of a more specific evidence base, HM Treasury has encouraged departments to collect data to inform future estimates of optimism, and in the meantime use the best available data. In response to this, the Department for Transport (henceforth DfT), has contracted Bent Flyvbjerg in association with COWI to undertake the consultancy assignment "Procedures for dealing with Optimism Bias in Transport Planning". The present Guidance Document is the result of this assignment.

Across the 19th century, the medieval period played a key role in the consolidation of a Spanish national narrative from a two-pronged approach. First, the idea of a national liberation struggle against the Muslim enemy and of Spain as a nation shaped against Islam crystallized in the concept of Reconquista. On the other hand, the consolidation of Arabic Studies as an academic discipline led to a second paradigm, Muslim Spain, which allowed the cultural, scientific, and architectonic achievements of al-Andalus to be considered as part of the national heritage. Both paradigms, Reconquista and Muslim Spain coexisted until the 1970s and shaped most of the Spanish nationalist historical writing. Over the last years of the dictatorship and after Franco's demise, both came under heavy criticism and fell into deep disrepute. However, while the idea of Muslim Spain became entirely extinct, the notion of Reconquista, however, survived and remains currently in force in significant academic and political outlets, keeping rather intact all its toxic nationalist burden.

The goal of this work is to describe the relations and contacts between the most representative italian left wing terror group and the East Germany intelligence service at the time of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, one of the most investigated crimes in the italian 70's.

"How to make sense of ‘Asia’––an impossible object of study––and what it means today in light of the rise of China after the age of opium wars and full-on imperialism. To what extent, the chapter asks, is Asia today best understood as a China-centred global system, as also suggested by ASEAN+3? Certainly, the PRC poses a number of challenges to current theories about colonialism, sovereignty and the alleged end of the Cold War. Equally clear is that, although sometimes designated as ‘non-colonized’ or outside the problematic of postcolonialism, the PRC is deeply influenced by modern imperialism and neoliberalism. The chapter picks up on the ‘missed opportunity’ between postcolonial and China studies and the relative non-engagement with the PRC in inter-Asian cultural studies, offering a series of reflections on overlaps between them––e.g. in terms of modernization theory, Orientalism and Occidentalism, totalitarianism––as well as opening up avenues for further debate.


Keywords: Asia; China; Orientalism; Occidentalism; modernization; neoliberalism; Tibet; Cold War; revolution"

Al-Andalus, an Arab and Islamic country in Iberia between 711 and 1492, has been highly controversial in modern Spain. Over the 19th century, Spanish nationalist historical writing developed a two-pronged approach to the Iberian medieval process. According to the Reconquista paradigm, the Christians conquest of Islamic territories represented a national liberation struggle while al-Andalus was merely considered the anti-Spain. At the same time, al-Andalus was also interpreted as the 'Islamic Spain', part of the eternal Spanish nation. While the concept of 'Islamic Spain'  came under heavy criticism since the 1970s and became nearly totally disregarded, the traditional idea of Reconquista has been preserved and remains considered as a suitable reading of medieval Iberia among relevant scholarly and non-academic outlets.

The following is an extract of a book review by Peter Brandt, Berlin, translated by Norman LaPorte (the full review see: Twentieth Century Communism 3 (2011), p. 226-230).

One of the darkest chapters in the history of Soviet-style communism was the two years of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, 1939-41. And here, as in many other cases, whoever wanted to know what was really happening then could have known earlier--at least in general outline (...) By this means the intensity of German-Soviet co-operation around 1940--both the open and secret support of the USSR for the Nazi Reich--was more clearly established; as well as the fact that Stalin in the summer of 1939 consciously decided in favour of the option presented by Hitler's Germany, which he thought was advantageous for him. Overall, today one can no longer speak of a poor state of research in relation to the inter-state level of the pact.

This book, however, presents documents on an aspect of the topic that is relatively underexposed though not previously unknown: the specific role of the Communist International, its various member parties, and in particular the KPD in exile. And it is a study as fascinating and gripping as it is depressing. The collection is complemented by a contribution from a contemporary witness, Wolfgang Leonhard, who experienced the policy reversal inside the Soviet Union and the communist movement as a very young man, and who remains today perturbed by the shock of these events. Bayerlein's introduction, which follows an extensive contextualising foreword by Hermann Weber, contains some impressive interpretational work, which is almost always convincing. This study is to be recommended without reservation!

The book is not an edition for purely academic use. The sources it presents are, generally, published consecutively, as a series of extracts, but also comply with academic referencing norms; and they manage to fit a large amount of rich material between the covers. The individual extracts are each preceded by a short introduction, giving the necessary historical context. Additionally, more specific explanations or notes are incorporated into the text and, together with relevant photographs, listed in the margin. An annotated register of names, an index of pseudonyms, codenames and acronyms, and a thematically ordered compilation of selected literature, round off this user-friendly volume for a broadly historically and politically interested public. The documents, translated from various languages into German, originate in the main from the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History and the Archive of the Parties and Mass Organisations of the GDR in the Federal Archives; in addition there is material from a number of other archives, plus, not least, documents from several foreign publications.

At the centre of the documented events (... ) is the encoded correspondence of the Moscow Centre of the Comintern, which was handled by its secret radio networks; the informal sources around Stalin and his closest collaborators; and party and government declarations, official correspondence, speeches, articles, secret reports and so forth, at various different levels. From all this there emerges into view a multifarious and dense network of a very particular mechanism, and its specific relationships to the power politics of the Soviet state and ideological legitimisation. Communist sources are frequently cross-referenced to (more or less private) statements by left-wing critics, from within the communists' own ranks, and there are also revealing quotes from Goebbels's diaries. In the course of this, the nomenklatura appears above all else as a dictatorship, based on methodical lies and self-deception.

What was the bottom line? The official communist party characterisation of the war before the summer of 1941 was that it was imperialist on both sides (...). But during the years of the Hitler Stalin pact world communism--following Stalinist foreign policy and its instrumentalisation by the Soviet state--in fact stood on the side of national socialist Germany, although this was cloaked in official neutrality. This was most blatantly visible in the attempts of the communist parties of northern and western Europe to enable the continued existence of their organisations and press during the course of the German occupation of their respective countries in the spring and summer of 1940. The hopes of German communists themselves for a long time focused on a semi-legal status for the KPD under the national socialist dictatorship. According to Walter Ulbricht, they would then defend the German-Soviet Pact--together with social-democratic workers and Nazi 'working people'--against the aggressive, bellicose plans of England, the alleged centre of world imperialism, and 'expose' its enemies. It was because of this perspective that world communism hushed up national socialist terror during these years, especially the persecution of the Jews.

This means that Ulbricht's infamous article in the Comintern journal Die Welt (9 February 1940)--which Bayerlein takes up--far from representing an extreme position or an aberration, in fact describes in its logic exactly the political line of the KPD, the Comintern and its Moscow masters. After the rapid victory of the German Wehrmacht over the French army and the speedy establishment of Nazi hegemony on the European continent, which was obviously not anticipated by Stalin, there was a tentative modification--though not a revision--of the communist stance on the war that had been propagated since the end of August 1939.

Bayerlein's collection does also show how profoundly the communist world movement--especially in Europe--struggled to accept the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and in the subsequent period tried to assess how to react to further changes to the situation as brought about by the Soviet-German Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 28 September 1939. They had, after all, battled for years under the banner of antifascism. But 'fascism' and 'antifascism' were now, according to foreign minister Molotov, 'outdated unusable formulations'. The previous world view had virtually been turned on its head.

Initially, a number of communist parties misunderstood the German-Soviet Pact as purely an emergency measure taken by Stalin, which would still allow them to continue the policy of the 'people's front' period in a modified form. (...) The Moscow leadership, communicating its stance via the Comintern, had to intervene severely in this case, as well as against other communist parties, in order to 'correct' this (...) Especially among their closer allies in the left and liberal political spectrum, there was a horrified distancing from this policy. Among German political exiles, the Hitler-Stalin Pact (...) contributed decisively to a rapprochement of independent left-wing socialist groupings and the rump SPD.

One of the particular merits of the present selection of documents is the opportunity it offers of establishing continuities between the 1939-41 phases and the following phase--from the beginning of the Wehrmacht's Russian crusade until the dissolution of the Comintern (1941-43). A key continuity was the complete abandonment of a world revolutionary orientation--in the original sense--in favour of the pursuit of espionage activities for the USSR, which could now scarcely be differentiated from the political activities of the International. (The heroic resistance of communists in Nazi-dominated Europe, including the Third Reich, is of course another story.) The proclaimed aim of the making of 'patriotic alliances'--now very widely conceived--is, upon closer examination, on a par with the empty phrases of the pact phase. (...)  This effectively Moscow-initiated strategy is rightly stripped of its heroic halo by Bayerlein, through the use of documents by contemporary critics.

The title of the book is a quote from the last article written by the inspired publicist and organiser Willi Münzenberg, who had been forced out of the KPD in 1938-9 because he did not follow Ulbricht's policy towards the communists' allies on the left--or on other forms of intolerant and ill-advised behaviour. On 22 September 1939, in response to the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Münzenberg wrote--in a reference to the typical Stalinist psychosis of betrayal: 'Today millions wake up in all countries, they stretch out their arms, pointing to the East, and call: "The traitor, Stalin, is you!"'

Münzenberg, who was murdered in the summer of 1940 in unexplained circumstances, could not know in the autumn of 1939 how far Stalin was prepared to go. In furtherance of the pact, more than 1000 imprisoned German communists who had fallen out of favour were got rid of by simply handing them over to the National Socialist security forces at the German-Soviet demarcation line.

Questo libro propone una ricostruzione originale delle vicende italiane dalla Liberazione e dall’avvento della Repubblica a oggi. La sua particolarità deriva dal fatto che gli autori hanno dato spazio non soltanto alle vicende politiche ed economiche, ma anche alle trasformazioni della società e del costume, al fenomeno mafioso, all’impatto dei mass media, agli sviluppi del volontariato sociale, al ruolo della Chiesa. In queste pagine si ritrova così la storia di un popolo che dagli orrori di una guerra totale e da una condizione di diffusa povertà è riuscito a raggiungere inattesi livelli di benessere. Vi si legge pure la storia di un sistema politico perennemente in difficoltà, passato dal regime fascista a una fragile democrazia, attraversando le diverse fasi del centrismo, del centro-sinistra, della ‘solidarietà nazionale’, del ‘pentapartito’ ed entrato infine in una tumultuosa e mai conclusa nuova fase di trasformazione. Inoltre, non dimentichiamolo, in queste pagine si ritrova la storia delle vittime della violenza terroristica, delle mafie e delle tante tragedie ‘naturali’ che hanno segnato quasi settant’anni di vita italiana.

This text summarizes the origin and development of digital architecture during the last decades, citing key authors and projects. The document concludes with reflections on the current state of digital architecture and its role in contemporary design.

Come cambia l'immagine di un paese a seconda della situazione geopolitica internazionale? Si esamina il caso esemplare dell'Unione sovietica fra il 1945 e il 1948, che in soli tre anni dopo il discorso di Fulton si trasforma sui giornali italiani da alleato fedele, cui si perdona tutto, ad acerrimo nemico.

The chapter discusses the process of industrialization, development, and modernization in the margins of Europe, by comparing practices of governmentality and the nation-building projects of Romania and Norway. The theoretical framework draws on Freudian psychoanalysis, feminist psychoanalysis, Michel Foucault, Benedict Anderson, Actor-Network Theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.