Reviews

Art and Power. Europe under the dictators, 1930–45 Hayward Gallery, London, 26 October, 1995–21 January 1996; Centro de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, 26 February‐6 May 1996; Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 7 June‐20 August 1996.

Richard Bessel (ed.), Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, 256 pp., ISBN 0–521–47129x hbk, £35.00,0–521–477115 pbk, £ 12.95.

Alexander J. de Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, The ‘Fascist Style of Rule’, Routledge, London, 1995, 128 pp., ISBN 0–451–105986 pbk, £ 7.99.

R.J.B. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World 1860–1960, Routledge, London, 1996, 252pp., ISBN 0–415–134773–3, hbk, £40.

Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce's Other Woman, William Morrow and Co. Inc., New York, 1993, 685 pp., ISBN 0–688–06299–7, pbk, $25.00.

Lino Del Fra, Sciara Sciat. Genocidio nell'oasi. L'esercito italiano a Tripoli, Datanews, Rome, 1995,103 pp., ISBN 88–7981–051–0,15,000 Lire.

Angelo Del Boca, I gas di Mussolini, Il fascismo e la guerra d'Etiopia, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1996,190 pp., ISBN 88–359–4091–5,15,000 Lire.

Giovanni De Luna, Donne in oggetto. L'antifascismo nella società italiana, 1922–1939, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1995, 435 pp., ISBN 88–339–0932–8, hbk, 50,000 Lire.

Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes. Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp.502, ISBN 0–521–45287–2 hbk, £.40.00.

Adriano and Luca Sofri (eds), Si allontanarono alla spicciolata. Le carte riservate di polizia su Lotta Continua, Sellerio Editorio, Palermo, 1996, pp.183, ISBN 88–389–1228–9, hbk, 15,000 Lire.

Stephen Gundle and Simon Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi, Routledge, London, 1996, 352 pp., ISBN 0415 12161 2 hbk, £45.00, ISBN 0 415 12162 0 pbk, £14.99.

Marco Innocenti, L'Italia del dopoguerra 1946–1960. Come eravamo negli anni dal boogie‐woogie alia dolce vita, Mursia, Milan, 1995, pp.238, ISBN 88–425–1911–1 pbk, 28,000 Lire.

Richard S. Katz and Piero Ignazi (eds), Italian Politics. The Year of the Tycoon, Istituto Cattaneo/Westview Press, Oxford and Boulder, Co., 1996, 261 pp., ISBN 0–8133–8972–0 hbk, £37.00,0–8133–2976–0 pbk, £13.50.

Gian Enrico Rusconi, Resistenza e postfascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1995, 207 pp., ISBN 88–15–04850–2, pbk, 18,000 Lire.

Giulio Sapelli, Southern Europe since 1945: Tradition and Modernity in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, translated by Ann Fuller, Longman, London, 1995, 251 pp., ISBN 0–582–07064–3 hbk, £35.00, 0–582–07065–1 pbk, £14.99.

Frank M. Snowden, Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, 478 pp., ISBN 0–521–48310–7 hbk, £40.00.

Lucio Sponza and Diego Zancani (compilers), World Bibliographical Series: Volume 30: Italy, Clio Press, Oxford and Santa Barbara, Ca., 1995, xxi + 417 pp., ISBN 0–903450–44–5 hbk, £67.50.

Storia dell'Italia repubblicana. Volume seconda, La. trasformazione dell'Italia: sviluppo e squilibri. I. Politica, economia, società, Einaudi, Turin, 1995, pp.897, ISBN 88–06–1365–6 hbk, 130,000 Lire.

Carlo Tullio‐Altan; Ethnos e civiltà. Identiche etniche e valori democratici, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1995, 181 pp., ISBN 88–07–10193–9 pbk, 30,000 Lire.

Perry R. Willson, The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993, 291 pp., ISBN 0–19–822732–9 hbk, £35.00.     

TheConvergence of the Italian Regions and Unemployment: Theory and Evidence

We explore the links between the halt of the convergence process of Italian regions at the beginning of the 1970s and the increase in regional unemployment dispersion. We consider a neoclassical exogenous growth model with an imperfect labor market and show that during the transitional dynamics the imperfections of the labor market negatively influence the output growth rate. In particular, the model implies that centralized bargaining is likely to set a national minimum wage that is too high with respect to the labor productivity of the less developed regions, resulting in a negative impact on their per capita output growth. We test the implications of the model on a regional panel data set using the GMM framework. Both our market distortion measure and the unemployment rate are found to significantly lower the growth rate of per capita output.     

A Preliminary Critique of the Best and Good Practices Approach in European Spatial Planning and Policy-making

“Good practices” are found everywhere, particularly in European policies. They are usually taken for granted as familiar events in daily life. For actors involved in policy-making, it seems quite natural to produce, disseminate and use repertoires of good practices. This article discusses this phenomenon, arguing that “good practices” are one of the main tools in Europeanization processes, particularly for the European idea of “good governance”. Analyses of the Interact, Interreg and Urbact programmes of production of good practice repertoires lead to an examination of a number of characteristics of “good practice”: as a kind of regulation through sense-making processes, as a standardization tool in order to compare and measure performances in different situations, as an object of self-reflection and constitution of communities of practices, as a strategic representation and as an advocacy device.     

Rocking of Non-symmetric Rigid Blocks in Buildings Considering Effects Associated with Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction

A dynamic model for the estimation of the rocking and/or overturning response of a free-standing non-symmetric rigid block considering rotational and horizontal excitation is proposed. The block is situated at different levels of a building with flexible base subjected to earthquakes. Base flexibility introduces the rotational component of the excitation due to dynamic soil-structure interaction (DSSI). The model is used to assess the influence of the dynamic soil-structure interaction on the behavior of the block. An illustrative example of the proposed model for non-symmetric rigid blocks in 5-, 10-, and 15-story buildings located in soft soils considering earthquakes from different seismic sources is presented. Results show that it is important to consider kinematic effects as well as inertial effects of DSSI in the dynamic response of contents. The influence of base flexibility depends on the change of spectral intensities associated to the increase of the building structural period and is larger for higher building levels.     

Out of the crisis: an empirical investigation of place-specific determinants of economic resilience

This article attempts to isolate the structural characteristics that affect the resilience of a regional economy. It focuses on the role played by related/unrelated variety and differentiated knowledge bases as drivers for regional resilience and originally explores their interdependences. Italy is the empirical setting, and Italian local labour systems the unit of analysis. Regional resilience is measured as growth of the employment rate after the Great Recession that began in 2008. Results confirm the importance of related variety and of differentiated knowledge bases as drivers for regional resilience. We found support of the creative capacity of culture argument, providing evidence that a moderate concentration in symbolic knowledge-based economic activities contributes to resilience. Synthetic and analytical knowledge-based activities provide positive and no support to regional resilience, respectively. Finally, the relatedness of the symbolic knowledge-based activities increases regional economic resilience. Some policy implications are then derived from these findings.     

Bone damage patterns found in the avian prey remains of crested caracara Caracara plancus (Aves,Falconiformes)

The following paper presents the results of the analysis of the avian prey bones found in uneaten remains of crested caracara (Caracara plancus, Aves, Falconiformes) from La Pampa province, Argentina. Anatomical parts representation and taphonomic modifications were evaluated and compared to results of the evaluation of bone remains recovered from crested caracara’s pellets and to previous studies of other diurnal birds of prey. The results suggest a preferential consumption of some body parts of avian prey, as evidenced in the high frequency of wing elements in the uneaten prey remains. This analysis helps to support interpretative data concerning the origins of avian remains in the zooarchaeological and paleontological record, and contributes to the knowledge of a common predator found throughout diverse environments in South America.