Muted violence: Italian war crimes in occupied Greece

This article considers the myth of Italians as ‘good people’ that has dominated post-war historiography as well as the public and institutional discourse, and analyses the connection between the judiciary paradigm and the historical narrative of the Second World War. It presents an account of Italian war crimes in occupied Greece and suggests a possible interpretation regarding the military violence towards the civilian population. War crimes are considered within the context of the general orientation of the fascist policy of occupation and the structures of conflict that emerged in the occupied territories. In particular, it discusses the turning point in Italian repressive action, from the logic of reprisal to a policy of massacre.     

Colonial rule,colonial repression and war crimes in the Italian colonies

A strange silence has long reigned in the public memory as well as in Italian historical studies regarding possible crimes committed by Italy in its colonial territories. The aim of this article is to reflect on the reasons for this silence through an examination of the major historiographical questions and a review of the few studies available on the subject. The historiographical use of the judicial category of ‘crimes’ or ‘war crimes’ should not be taken for granted, above all in examining the history of the colonial experience. The most important authors have ignored the risk that the sensationalistic use of the category ‘crime’ – in itself an extraordinary and exceptional event – can make one forget the weight of the ordinary running of a colonial power. With these precautions, the article offers a list of the principal episodes historians now unanimously define as crimes. These episodes eliminate any possibility of taking refuge in the self-absolving and vague appeals to stereotypes of Italians as ‘good people’. The article concludes by defining precisely the triple order of silences that together produced the general silence that the author considers an obstacle and a post-colonial stain on the memory of colonial Italy.     

The Asaba massacre and the Nigerian civil war: reclaiming hidden history

This article explores the consequences of a massacre of civilians in Asaba, a town on the west bank of the river Niger, during the early stages of the Nigerian civil war. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of the Igbo-dominated Biafra, remaining part of the ethnically diverse midwest region. In the international memory of the war, the midwest action, which claimed several thousand lives, has been eclipsed by the catastrophic events east of the Niger, after the federal blockade of Biafra. This article sheds new light on the human cost of the war on civilian populations outside Biafra. Drawing on interviews with survivors and their descendants, we describe the killings, pillaging and rapes that followed the arrival of the federal troops, and trace the long-term impact and memory of the physical and human devastation in Asaba on family structure, gender roles, educational opportunities and social structure. We show how the official suppression of the massacres, coupled with Biafran awareness of the events, contributed to the subsequent course of the war, and we suggest that this suppression has left a legacy that perpetuates resentment and has kept ethnic tensions alive to this day.     

The Italian resistance between history and memory

Abstract

Since the 1960s the Resistance has held pride of place in public ceremonial, political debate and to a point also in historcial writing in Italy. The emphasis on its popular and national character transformed the Resistance into the struggle of the whole country to rid Italy of the German invaders and the small number of Italian fascists who remained their allies, but in ways that took no account of the complexity of people's reactions and the different ways in which Italians experienced the years immediately after the fall of fascism. In the last decade, however, numerous accounts have been published that contradict the images of the Resistance that for 30 years have constituted the ‘official’ memory of the Italian Republic. As a result, the Resistance offers a classic example of the ‘public use of history’, in which historical interpretation has served primarily to justify party political, instutitional and idelogical ends. It is now clear, however, that the supposed unity against fascism was more the result of agreement that there were limits beyond which political differences could not be pressed rather than of a deeper political unity that might have provided the basis for the political and institutional reform of the Italian Republic. The contrasting memories and interpretations of that period that have recently re-emerged for the same reason make it more difficult to project a new Italian democracy for the future.     

Reason and lovelessness: Tagore,war crimes,and Justice Pal

Rabindranath Tagore, whose oeuvre provincialized Europe, thought about the Nation-State’s wars and crimes in ways congruent with that of another man from Calcutta: Radhabinod Pal, the Indian judge at the Tokyo War Crimes Trial. Several themes intersect here. Tagore was prescient about the aeroplane as the colonial vehicle of atrocity in modern war, anticipating the atomic bombs. He began with high hopes for Japan and an Asia that was one, but his story is a transition from innocence to experience of Japan’s militarism. In the face Japanese scorn at his criticisms Tagore expressed a profound moral teaching about defeat, so called, and the extent to which even victorious civilizations might dishonor themselves. Justice Pal, naively thought by the great powers to be an ally in their legal endeavors to ratify a ‘victor’s justice’, arrived in Tokyo in 1946 with a secret weapon strapped to his heart: his faith in ancient Hindu law, which covertly informs the post-colonial tenor of his ‘dissentient’ judgment, first fully published in Calcutta in 1953. The argument here rests, if that’s possible, where Ashis Nandy ends his illuminating essay on Pal: culpability in matters of war is not easily divisible.     

'Away From Tokyo': The Pacific Islands war crimes trials, 1945-1949

Over the years, a certain mantra has arisen in academic circles involving the post-World War II war crimes trials. Nuremberg, it is said, was a needed display of 'allied justice' and 'democratic fair play'. The Tokyo and Pacific region trials were exercises in 'victor's justice' and 'racism'. Accenting the determined, precedent-setting work of the Pacific Islands war crimes trials on Guam, 'Away from Tokyo' argues that justice was served well there. Evil should never go unpunished. Based on archival research at the Micronesian Area Research Center the US Territory of Guam, Stanford University and the Douglas MacArthur Memorial Archives, this paper examines the good work of both the prosecution and defence teams on Guam. Few trial participants viewed their efforts as part of a larger conspiracy of revenge and racism. In fact, that conspiracy never existed. 'Away from Tokyo' attempts to set the record straight, and re-examines some dramatic cases at the same time.     

Women's history and gender history: The Italian experience

Since the early nineteenth century political opposition became a central concept of political representation in constitutional monarchies. While this concept marked the political language of unified Italy on the national level, in local administration the legitimacy of political opposition remained an issue of dispute, as illustrated in this analysis of the political language in Bologna's city council. Local perceptions of national events, like Garibaldi's unsuccessful Mentana-campaign, assumed a significant symbolic meaning and challenged traditional understandings of local administration by introducing notions of political opposition. In Bologna, the second city of the former Papal State, the Moderates were able to form a political hegemony after the Unification of Italy and remained the predominant political force also after the parliamentary revolution of 1876 and the electoral reforms of the 1880s. Due to its limited influence on the local administration, Bologna's Left defined its ideological profile earlier and more clearly than the Left in other parts of Italy and integrated issues of national importance into local political discourse. Illustrating the relationship between central administration and the periphery, the article analyses the development of political language and changing meanings of political representation on the local level between Unification and World War One.     

The shadow of the civil war: A historiography of civil war memory

The memory of the Civil War has become one of the most vibrant and contested subjects in nineteenth-century American history over the past two decades. Studies of Civil War memory potentially can reveal much about the cultural, political, and intellectual world of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. Whereas the Civil War has often been studied in historical isolation, histories of memory thrust off the standard constraints of periodization to emphatically link the Civil War with late nineteenthcentury history. David W Blight's award-winning synthesis Race and Reunion (2001) both indicates the topic's rapid maturation and heightens the need for a historiographical excursion to assess the collective strengths and weaknesses of this burgeoning subfield. The following essay explores the convergence of factors, both within and outside of the historical profession, which have encouraged the boom in memory studies. In addition, it traces the emerging historiography to examine both the creative diversity of the field as well as its common assumptions, insights, and strategic limits.     

Doing Italian history: Pleasure and politics

This is the second part of a general historiographical review of recent studies on the formation of a modern Italian nation and national identities. The review is organized chronologically, and this second part covers literature on the development of the Italian state and society from Fascism to the birth of the Republic. Si tratta della seconda parte di una articolo dedicato al tema del proceso di 'nation and state building' e modernizzazione in Italia, con particolare attenzione per i temi della costruzione della macchina statale e dell'identità nazionale. La prima parte si era soffermata sul periodo risorgimentale e sull'Italia liberale fino alla prima guerra mondiale e all'avvento del regime fascista. L'articolo tenta di ricostruire in maniera critica i nuovi contributi interpretativi di un dibattito come quello sul processo di costruzione dello stato nazionale unitario, che di recente sembra essersi riacceso, collocandoli nel solco di una tradizione storiografica sul tema, oramai consolidata. Accanto a questa, infatti, sembra farsi strada una nuova stagione di studi, molto meno ancorata al peso che per lungo tempo hanno esercitato i differenti condizionamenti ideologici. In questa seconda parte vengono analizzate le interpretazioni storiografiche, basate su nuove ricerche recentemente condotte, sul ventennio fascista e sulla nascità e lo sviluppo dell'Italia Repubblicana.     

Raising the dead: war,memory and American national identity*

Abstract. The dead, particularly the war dead, play a central role in the development of nationalism, nowhere more so than in America. America's mid‐nineteenth century Civil War produced a recognisable and influential ‘cult of the dead’, comparable in its construction with similar developments in Europe following World War I. Focused on the figure of the fallen soldier, especially the volunteer soldier, this cult found physical expression in the development of national cemeteries devoted not just to the burial of those who fell in the war but to the idea of America as a nation, in the development of monuments to the dead that, again, reinforced the new national symbolism of the war era, and in the beginnings of Memorial Day, an American sacred ceremony with clear parallels with the later Armistice Day ceremonies in Europe. In all these developments, America preceded the European nations by several decades, making America a valuable case study for the role that the cult of the fallen soldier plays in national development more generally.     

The American war: Italian culture and Hollywood movies on the Second World War

Abstract

This article deals with the reception of American narratives on the Second World War in Italy, assuming the key role that myths and memories about the conflict played in post-war Europe and the importance of transcultural exchanges in the mass-media age. Such narratives were not imported to Italy by official US propaganda, but were mainly conveyed by Hollywood war movies, which were centred on the ideas of the righteousness of the conflict and of the fight between good and evil. The article focuses on a specific sector of the Italian audience, that of critics and film reviewers, who played a key role in interpreting the films and in fostering their acceptance – or refusal. Through the analysis of cinema magazines and newspapers, the research outlines how the reception of such movies was influenced by multiple elements, the different political and ideological allegiances, the cultural gap between elite and popular periodicals, and the interactions with Italian myths and memories about the war. Finally, the article compares the results of the inquiry with the rare sources about the reception of American narratives among a mass audience, and underlines the importance of a transnational approach to the study of cultural issues in contemporary history.     

Elections,contemporary history,policy and ideology: Current writing on Mrs Thatcher

Andrew Gamble, The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism. Macmillan Education, Basingstoke, 1988, pp.263 + xii, $21.95 (paper).

Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. Verso, London, 1988, pp.283 + vii, $29.95 (paper).

Martin Harrop and Andrew Shaw, Can Labour Win? The Fabian Series, Unwin Hyman, London, 1989, pp.143 + x, $16.95 (paper).

Peter Jenkins, Mrs Thatcher's Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era. Pan Books, London, 1988, pp.417 + xxxviii, $14.99 (paper).

Bob Jessop, Kevin Bonnett, Simon Bromley and Tom Ling, Thatcherism: A Tale of Two Nations. Polity Press in association with Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, 1988, pp.219 + viii, $25.95 (paper).

Dennis Kavanagh and Peter Morris, Consensus Politics from Attlee to Thatcher, Making Contemporary Britain. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp.137 + xvii, $23.95 (paper).

Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon (eds.), The Thatcher Effect. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp.355 + xvii, $23.95 (paper).

Kenneth Minogue and Michael Biddiss (eds.), Thatcherism: Personality and Politics. Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1987, pp.144 + xvii, $29.95 (paper).

Richard Rose and Ian McAllister, The Loyalties of Voters: A Lifetime Learning Model. Sage, London, 1990, pp.215 + xii, $22.90 (Paper).

Robert Skidelsky, Thatcherism. Chatto and Windus, London, 1988, pp.214, $29.95.

Leonard Tivey, Interpretations of British Politics: The Image and the System. Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, 1988, pp.168 + x, $30.95 (paper).

Hugo Young, One of Us. Macmillan, London, 1989, pp.570 + ix, $39.95.