Within the wider attempt to transform Italian communities abroad into Fascist colonies, the Italian Fasci Abroad sought to build nationalist propaganda in the Mediterranean. The irredentist activities and the propaganda of the Fasci in Malta alarmed the British governors on the island, the British government and MI5. This article analyses the cultural conflict organised in Maltese schools, bookshops and universities by the Italian nationalists against the British protectorate–a conflict the British suspected could be followed by military activity, in particular when Italy began building its empire in Ethiopia. The nationalist offensive was supported in the 1920s and, more vigorously, in the 1930s by the Fasci, the Italian consulate on the island and, ultimately, the Italian government. Not even the Second World War and the bombing of Malta by the Italian air force concluded the conflict between Italian and British imperialism on the island.

There are few issues that better illustrate the unresolved condition of the Italian right in the postwar period (neo-fascist in identity, democratic from necessity) than that of its stance on Israel, the Jews and Zionism. In the aftermath of the fall of fascism, the right had no difficulty in combining the defence of anti-Jewishness with domestic anti-anti-fascist policies and a foreign policy that was hostile towards the ‘allies’ of 1940–1945. Yet as soon as political competition became oriented around pro- and anti-communism, the right was, over time, driven to play down the recollections of fascism and specifically its antipathy towards Israel, not to mention its anti-Zionism. The exacerbation of the Middle East problem and the right's foreign policy response to it led to a further evolution in its stance, eventually culminating in a definitive end to any ambivalence on the issue with the birth of the ‘National Alliance’. From that point onwards, anti-Zionism found support only in the utterances of neo-Nazi skinheads and the banners of rowdy fans at the ‘northern end’ of football stadia.

This article seeks to explain the Iraq policy of Silvio Berlusconi's second government. Why did Berlusconi's Government declare ‘non-belligerency’ when the American-led war with Iraq began in March 2003? Why did the Government send a mission of 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq in April 2003? Why did Berlusconi announce the progressive withdrawal of that contingent in March 2005? This article recognises the Berlusconi Government's ideologically-rooted pro-American tendencies, but draws on liberal international relations theory to stress the importance of the electoral motive to explain the timing and nature of the Government's decisions. As the Italian public was highly critical of the Iraq war, the Berlusconi Government could not actively participate in the war; it had to frame the deployment as a peace mission and had to begin withdrawing Italian troops before Iraq was stable and secure.

Among his varied publications, Nuto Revelli (1919–2004) produced three collections of oral testimonies gathered from the contadini (peasants) of Piedmont: La strada del davai, Il mondo dei vinti and L’anello forte. This article argues that these collections were the product of the same specific impegno del dopo (‘obligation of afterwards’) as his initial autobiographical writings, which had arisen from his experiences as an officer on the Russian Front during the Second World War. From this premise, the article then examines the interaction of Revelli's sense of impegno del dopo with the methodology he developed. The article concludes with an assessment of Revelli's stated aims and his actual achievements.

The Italian futurist movement and its founder, F.T. Marinetti, have stimulated a vast historiography. Why has futurism fascinated so many and how, in particular, have the futurism-fascism and Marinetti-futurism relationships been conceived? To answer such questions, this article surveys nearly five decades of scholarship on futurism. It shows how futurism's fascist trajectory has polarised it and led scholars to a wide variety of positions. Some scholars limit themselves to the ‘heroic years’ up to 1916; others focus on ‘second futurism’ after 1915 without much reference to Marinetti; and still others treat futurism's ‘multiplicity’ using a centre-periphery model with Marinetti at the centre. Similarly, some insist on futurism's continuously ‘revolutionary’ character, others limit that claim, and still others deny it altogether. It is argued that recent biographical work on Marinetti has helped to clarify how one ought to approach and resolve these differences, but that scholarship on futurism nonetheless remains intensely politicised.