Roads and ruins : the symbolic landscape of fascist Rome / Paul Baxa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baxa, Paul, 1968-

Series:

Toronto Italian studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fascism--Italy--Rome.

Fascism.

Fascism and culture--Italy--Rome.

Fascism and culture.

Roads--Political aspects--Italy--Rome.

Roads.

City planning--Political aspects--Italy--Rome.

City planning.

City planning--Political aspects.

Rome (Italy)--History--1870-1945.

Rome (Italy).

Italy--Rome.

Italy.

Rome (Empire).

Physical Description:

xvi, 232 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, 2010.

Summary:

In the 1930s, the Italian Fascist regime profoundly changed the landscape of Rome's historic centre, demolishing buildings and displacing thousands of Romans in order to display the ruins of the pre-Christian Roman Empire. This transformation is commonly interpreted as a failed attempt to harmonize urban planning with Fascism's ideological exaltation of the Roman Empire. Roads and Ruins argues that the chaotic Fascist cityscape, filled with traffic and crumbling ruins, was in fact a reflection of the landscape of the First World War. In the radical interwar transformation of Roman space, Paul Baxa finds the embodiment of the Fascist exaltation of speed and destruction, with both roads and ruins defining the cultural impulses at the heart of the movement. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including war diaries, memoirs, paintings, films, and government archives, Roads and Ruins is a richly textured study that offers an original perspective on a well known story.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references ( pages [203]-215) and index.

ISBN:

9780802099952

0802099955

OCLC:

466659588