By 1940, Italy had been dragged from the fringes of war into its depths. Mussolini, dazzled by Hitler’s early successes and desperate not to be left behind, declared war on France and Britain. But Italy was unprepared—economically, militarily, emotionally. Its soldiers lacked equipment. Its people lacked conviction. The campaigns in Greece and
The silence after the war was deafening. Italy, bloodied and broken, stood with the victors but felt like a beggar at their table. The promises of Versailles had not been fulfilled. The economy was in collapse. Unemployment soared. Inflation devoured savings. Veterans returned not to applause but to poverty. Workers went on strike. Farmers occupied
The dawn of the twentieth century found Italy still searching for herself. Though unified in name, her soul remained scattered—between industrial north and rural south, between modern dreams and medieval memories, between the fire of revolution and the frost of bureaucracy. And then came war—not a civil one, not a nationalist struggle, but a gl
The clang of steel and the hiss of steam rose steadily from the valleys and hillsides of a changing Italy. Though the Risorgimento had unified the nation in law and borders, the true shaping of modern Italy began not in parliaments or battlefields, but in the echoing chambers of factories and workshops. The Industrial Revolution came late to Italy,