A major new account of the emergence of Italian democracy after the Second World War The
rebirth of Italy after the Second World War is one of the most impressive political
transformations in modern European history. In 1945 post-fascist Italy was devastated by war
and its reputation in the international arena was nil. Yet by December 1955 when Italy was
admitted to the United Nations the nation had contested three acrimonious but free general
elections had a flourishing press and was a leader in the re-building of Europe. The contrast
with Fascism was stark. This book charts the descent of Italy into Fascism the scale of the
wartime disaster the Italian resistance to Nazi occupation and the establishment of the
Republic in 1946. The Cold War divided in 1947 the coalition of parties that had led the
resistance to Fascism and Nazism. The book's final chapters deal with the consolidation of
Italian democracy and with the statesmanship of Alcide De Gasperi the premier from December
1945 to August 1953. The book argues first that De Gasperi deserves more credit than he has
typically been accorded for Italy's post-war democratization and second that Italian
democracy was constructed on a sound foundation - which is why it has been able to survive its
many post-war crises. Largely based on contemporary Italian sources the book is written in an
engaging lively way for both the general reader and specialists in Italian history.
