Against Redemption

Franco Baldasso is Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Program at Bard College. He is Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and co-Director of the Summer School program at Sapienza University in Rome, "The Cultural Heritage and Memory of Totalitarianism."

Introduction: Ruins and Debris of a Contested History 1 1. After Italian Totalitarianism 27 2. The Language of Responsibility 65 3. Ghosts from a Recent Past 96 4. Carlo Levi on the Religion of the State 140 5. Curzio Malaparte, a Tragic Modernity 172 Conclusion: Tearing Down the Monuments 199 Acknowledgments 205 Notes 209 Bibliography 265 Index 295

[A] remarkable, challenging work. . . Highly recommended.-- "Choice Reviews" A critical engagement with the past: with Against Redemption, this is what Franco Baldasso offers powerfully, with intellectual finesse and conceptual precision.---Rosario Forlenza, Journal of Modern Italian Studies An ambitious, wide-ranging, and masterful rethinking of postwar Italian culture. Baldasso challenges the narrative--embraced by both Christian Democrats and Communists--of redemption and regeneration that was to undergird Italian society. In doing so, he gives us new ways of re-reading Italian postwar history. With a firm grasp of the theoretical underpinnings and their repercussions, he shows that the period of 1943-1948 was marked by an extraordinary and liminal ideological fluidity.---Stanislao Pugliese, Hofstra University Deflating cliches, debunking myths, filling in gaps: Baldasso's book brings to light a much more multifaceted and controversial picture of the transition from fascism to democracy in Italy. With sharp arguments, remarkable interdisciplinary breadth and crisp prose, Baldasso delivers a must-read book for anyone interested in how collective memory is institutionalized--and perhaps even dismantled.---Maria Anna Mariani, Assistant Professor of Italian Literature, University of Chicago, and author of Primo Levi e Anna Frank: tra testimonianza e letteratura