Books

Medieval Salento

The Medieval Salento
: Art and Identity in Southern Italy, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014 Located in the heel of the Italian boot, the Salento region was home to a diverse…

A Legal Examination of Mussolini’s Race Laws

Rutgers Law Prof’s New Book Delivers Comprehensive Legal Examination of Mussolini’s Race Laws Michael Livingstone, The Fascists and the Jews of Italy: Mussolini’s Race Laws, 1938-1943 Cambridge University Press While…

Mediterranean Enlightenment

Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform, Stanford University Press 2014 The Mediterranean port of Livorno was home to one of the most prominent and privileged Jewish enclaves of…

Italian Jewry in the Early Modern Era

Italian Jewry in the Early Modern Era: Essays in Intellectual History     Research does not always proceed according to a predetermined plan. In some cases, the opposite is true:…

Gentile on Kertzer

Some Observations on Catholicism, Fascism and Totalitarianism During the Papacy of Pius XI. On David L. Kertzer’s The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise…

The Jews of Italy 1848–1915

Elizabeth Schächter, The Jews of Italy 1848–1915 Between Tradition and Transformation,  Vallentine Mitchell, 2011   Much has been written about the Jews during the Fascist regime, but the period from…

Love and the Idea of Europe

        Luisa Passerini, Love and the Idea of Europe, translated by Juliet Haydock with Allan Cameron, New York: Berghahn Books, 2009   Review (Jan Georg Soeffner) When…

The Jews of Libya

Maurice Roumani, The Jews of Libya: Coexistence, Persecution, Resettlement, Sussex Academic Press, 2008 This book investigates the transformative period in the history of the Jews of Libya (1938–52), a period…

The Pope and Mussolini

David Kertzer, The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, Random House, 2014 Review from The Guardian: David Kertzer’s nuanced book investigates…