Table of Contents

Introduction: the origins of American hegemony in Europe; 1. The United States and the rise of fascism in Italy; 2. United States economic policy toward Italy; 3. The United States and Italy confront the Great Depression; 4. Roosevelt and fascist Italy, from the London Economic Conference to the Italo-Ethiopian War (1933–6); 5. Conclusion.

Promotional Information

Originally published in Italian in 1980, Migone covers the relationship between the United States and Italy during the interwar years.

About the Author

Gian Giacomo Migone is Professor of History of Euroatlantic Relations at the University of Torino, Italy. He is the author of Problemi di Storia nei Rapporti tra Italia e Stati Uniti (1971) and Banchieri Americani e Mussolini (1979), and he has written numerous essays concerning Euro-Atlantic relations before, during, and after the Cold War. He was a member of the Italian Senate, where he chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, the United Nations System Staff College Advisory Board, the Civilian Affairs Committee, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, from 1992 to 2001. He is the founder and first editor of L'indice dei Libri del Mese, an Italian cultural monthly. Molly Tambor is Assistant Professor of European History at Long Island University (LIU) Post. She is the author of The Lost Wave: Women and Democracy in Postwar Italy (2014).

Reviews

'Gian Giacomo Migone figures as the foremost authority on Italo-American relations in the Fascist era. In his scintillating magnum opus, he traces fascist foreign policy forward and not backward through the distorted optic of World War II. Americans, he shows, admired Mussolini more than any other foreign statesman in the 1920s. And Rome's establishment, expertly advised by the Morgan Bank, pursued domestic stability by serving as the privileged partner of the United States. All those who consider fascism inherently expansionist must come to terms with Migone's brilliantly marshaled evidence.' Stephen A. Schuker, William W. Corcoran Professor of History, University of Virginia

'Still the most masterful work exploring American capitalism's complicity with the political economy of Italian fascism, how welcome to have Migone's strong narrative in English just as studies of the history of capitalism finally rebound.' Victoria de Grazia, Moore Collegiate Professor of History, Columbia University

'This is a concise well-documented piece of diplomatic history. The author uses archives from the United States, Italy, Britain, and elsewhere, governmental and private, an impressive list that helps give the work its breadth. It is unusual for such a text to stand the test of time, but that is indeed the case with The United States and Fascist Italy. I'm delighted to know that this book is going to [re]appear.' David Ellwood, The Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Europe, Bologna

'This careful and accomplished translation of a richly detailed account of the US relationship, governmental and financial, with Fascist Italy from Mussolini's accession to power in 1922 to the eve of war in 1939 was originally published in Italy in 1980. The author … provides a remarkably thoughtful preface to this edition, offering reflections on the historian's responsibilities.' Choice