
Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War
David A. Forgacs
The 1930s to the 1950s in Italy witnessed large increases in film-going, radio-listening, and the sale of music and weekly magazines. The industries that made and sold commercial, cultural products were transformed by the new technologies of reproduction and new approaches to marketing and distribution.
Yet historians tend to place the "real" genesis of mass culture in the 1960s, or to generalize about the harnessing of mass culture to the Fascist political project, without considering what kind of mass culture existed at the time and whether this harnessing was successful. This book draws on extensive new evidence, including oral histories and archival material, to explore possible continuities between the uses of mass culture before and after World War II.
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Reviews for Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War
European History Quarterly
Mass Culture and Italian Society is a very well-researched work ... It provides a masterly presentation and discussion ... which will be of great interest to scholars and postgraduate students of Italian cultural and social studies, and to those working on Italian history and politics of the twentieth century.Volume 14 Issue 7 2009
European Legacy
Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War examines what its authors describe as 'a relatively early' but nonetheless 'decisive' phase in the evolution of modern mass culture and cultural consumption in Italy. . . Of course, consumer culture eventually ploughed its way past Christian Democracy – and Communism – as it had Fascism. As Forgacs and Gundle's worthy and provocative work attests, the ultimate winners in this battle were the philistines. 17.3 2012
Modern Italy