Fascist spectacle : the aesthetics of power in Mussolini's Italy / Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta, 1957-

Series:

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 28.

Studies on the history of society and culture ; 28

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fascism--Italy.

Fascism.

Italy.

Italy--Politics and government--1922-1945.

Politics and government.

Fascism and culture--Italy.

Fascism and culture.

Aesthetics, Italian--20th century.

Aesthetics, Italian.

Physical Description:

xi, 303 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley ; Los Angeles : University of California Press, [1997]

Summary:

This richly textured cultural history of Italian fascism traces the narrative path that accompanied the making of the regime and the construction of Mussolini's power. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi reads fascist myths, rituals, images, and speeches as texts that tell the story of fascism. Linking Mussolini's elaboration of a new ruling style to the shaping of the regime's identity, she finds that in searching for symbolic means and forms that would represent its political novelty, fascism in fact brought itself into being, creating its own power and history.

Falasca-Zamponi argues that an aesthetically founded notion of politics guided fascist power's historical unfolding and determined the fascist regime's violent understanding of social relations, its desensitized and dehumanized claims to creation, its privileging of form over ethical norms, and ultimately its truly totalitarian nature.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-293) and index.

ISBN:

0520206231

OCLC:

34984368