Contemporary History

These two volumes contain the official proceedings of the international symposium «School Exercise Books: a Complex Source for a History of the Approach to Schooling and Education in the 19th and 20th Centuries» (Macerata, September 26-29, 2007).
The school exercise book in the contemporary age can be seen both an essential teaching aid and as a formidable tool for communication, thus as a unique source for exploring school culture and the approach to education in a given historical context. From cover to content, and including the codification process in its capacity as a material object, the school exercise book can tell us a great deal about the history of schools and education, about teaching methods and language, and about the educational projects and policies that the various nation states sought to implement in the 19th and 20th centuries. Within that framework, the history of education and literacy goes hand in hand with the history of educational ideas and of concrete educational practice, offering hitherto unexplored scenarios for research. These proceedings – which include papers submitted by scholars from all over the world (Europe, America and the Far East) – offer a broad panorama of the potential (and the limits) of such a complex source with its wealth of implications. They represent a corpus of study and enquiry based on a truly exhaustive and complete range of methods and tools of investigation. The exercise book seen as a vessel for writing, as a testimonial of educational practice as implemented by teachers, and as an essential part of the political and cultural socialisation pursued in schools, helps us to focus the historical and educational dynamic on the relationships that impart concrete substance to the rapport between educational theory, teachers, institutes of education and education policy on the one hand, and the real-life players – the men, women and children – who experienced those relationships in the first person.

Publicado como introducción a Javier Moreno Luzón (ed.), Construir España. Nacionalismo español y procesos de nacionalización, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2007, pp. 13-24. En una célebre frase de 1979, el intelectual valenciano y catalán Joan Fuster afirmaba que, "en plan de broma, podríamos decir que España-no el estado, la 'ideología'-es una invención de don Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo". Fuster, con una evidente intención provocadora-lo que Pierre Vilar llamó "su inimitable capacidad panfletaria"-, venía en realidad a denunciar la presencia de un españolismo rampante no sólo en las derechas sino también en las izquierdas españolas. Lo mismo le daban los herederos de la dictadura franquista que los socialdemócratas o los comunistas. No obstante, y por encima de sus objetivos políticos inmediatos, aquel panfleto señalaba la enorme importancia de un tema apenas estudiado, el nacionalismo español, y la necesidad de abordarlo desde perspectivas múltiples y rigurosas. A su juicio, había que desentrañar la historia del concepto de España y de las ideas españolistas en sus distintas versiones, así como la dinámica de sus relaciones con el catalanismo y su interiorización por parte de los españoles, atendiendo tanto a los discursos más elaborados como a la cultura popular. Hoy, casi treinta años más tarde, pocos compartirían las premisas filomarxistas y pan-catalanas de Fuster. Pero éste tampoco podría detectar tantas carencias, porque los historiadores se han empleado a fondo en tareas como las que él recomendaba y las polémicas sobre el nacionalismo español y la nacionalización de los españoles ocupan ya un lugar preeminente en la historiografía 1. El Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales acogió, en mayo de 2006, un coloquio internacional sobre estos asuntos al que fueron invitados diversos especialistas con un fin fundamental: que sometieran a discusión los resultados de investigaciones en marcha. Vaya por delante nuestro agradecimiento a quienes participaron en ese foro, tanto a los ponentes como a los comentaristas que moderaron los debates: José Álvarez Junco, Andrés de Blas Guerrero, Carolyn P. Boyd y Alfonso Botti. Este libro es el fruto de la revisión, a la luz de aquellas sesiones, de las ponencias presentadas entonces. Ya es el segundo de estas características, después del que dirigió Carolyn P. Boyd y se publicó hace unos meses bajo el título Religión y política en la España

Jonathan Woocher’s 2012 essay, “Reinventing Jewish Education for the 21st Century,” o ered
a distillation of concepts and prescriptions he
had been incubating for the better part of a decade (Woocher, 2012a). At its core was a
vision of a learner-centered educational system where Jewish wisdom (i.e., Torah) becomes a resource for personal meaning-making. Those familiar with the trajectory of Woocher’s thinking were surely not surprised by his enthusiasm for prosumerism or his relative sanguinity about
the decline of legacy institutions. But they might have been caught o  guard by the virtual absence of any reference to a role for community and Jewish peoplehood in his proposed educational paradigm. For Woocher, Jewish community had been an animating concern that presaged his interest in communal dynamics, guided his work as the longtime executive director of the Jewish Education Service of North America ( JESNA), and grounded his e orts on behalf of Jewish continuity and renaissance. Was Woocher’s silence on community in “Reinventing Jewish Education” indicative of a radical rethinking of the bases of Jewish life?

Negli anni Ottanta il punk era una forma d’arte, un simbolo globale di ribellione, una cultura musicale e giovanile: un fenomeno culturale complesso, che ha avuto importanti implicazioni politiche, tanto da diventare un nuovo circuito dell’attivismo giovanile e dell’impegno dopo il declino della “stagione dei movimenti”.

Fondato su un ampio ventaglio di fonti, il libro analizza origini e sviluppi del punk e lo colloca nelle sue reti transnazionali di produzione e mobilitazione: quell’esperienza diventa un osservatorio capace di restituire in modo originale le più ampie trasformazioni culturali e politiche del tempo, con particolare attenzione al caso dell’Italia e della Gran Bretagna.

Siamo nati da soli vuole in questo modo contribuire al rinnovamento delle cornici interpretative degli anni Ottanta, mettendo in discussione il senso comune sul decennio come “tempo del riflusso”, di “fine” della politica, di “trionfo” del privato e di “scomparsa” dei giovani.

The principal theme of this volume is the importance of the public use of human remains in a historical perspective. The book presents a series of case studies aimed at offering historiographical and methodological reflections and providing interpretative approaches highlighting how, through the ages and with a succession of complex practices and uses, human remains have been imbued with a plurality of meanings. Covering a period running from late antiquity to the present day, the contributions are the combined results of multidisciplinary research pertaining to the realities of the Italian peninsula, hitherto not investigated with a long-term and multidisciplinary historical perspective. From the relics of great men to the remains of patriots, and from anatomical specimens to the skeletons of the saints: through these case studies the scholars involved have investigated a wide range of human remains (real or reputed) and of meanings attributed to them, in order to decipher their function over the centuries. In doing so, they have traversed the interpretative boundaries of political history, religious history and the history of science, as required by questions aimed at integrating the anthropological, social and cultural aspects of a complex subject.

An insurance man, a rocker, a partisan, a deportee, a bandoneonist.... What can such different figures have in common? Very little, you might say, apart from the fact that they are among the main protagonists of "contemporary music", a world from which people generally prefer to keep away because it seems distant, complicated and incomprehensible. But is it really so?
The exciting story proposed in the book intends to bring contemporary music closer to its potential listeners through the stories of people such as Stockhausen, Gershwin, Berio, Xenakis, Takemitsu, Piazzolla or Sofija Gubajdulina who, in their variety, give an idea of the exceptional richness of the musical languages of the 20th and 21st centuries and their closeness to the human condition of our time.

‘Based on exhaustive work in numerous archives and in several languages, Lorenzo Kamel has produced what I think is one of the most definitive works on the transition from empire to nation-state. It is impressively ambitious and does what many major historians have been promising to do: to show how hard, Western conceptions of identity shaped and formed the thinking and decisions of statesmen and other political elites in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It also deals with the penetration of hard national categories among the various peoples of the empire. It is an authoritative book and will be very widely consulted.’
NICHOLAS DOUMANIS
Author of Before the Nation and Professor, School of Humanities and Languages, The University of New South Wales – Sydney
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‘This book will make an important mark on the field. From Empire to Sealed Identities shows the ways in which ethnic and other divisions were historically constructed in the Middle East under the influence of imperial powers. The work combines meticulous archival research in multiple languages with careful analysis of broader trends to map the transition from empire to homogenized nation-states. This ability to document with rich detail and at the same time be able to present the larger picture with great clarity is rare. The author pulls off the feat with great erudition.’
BETH BARON
Distinguished Professor of History, The Graduate Center and City College, CUNY
Past President, Middle East Studies Association (MESA)
Director, Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center
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‘In this engaging revisionary study, Lorenzo Kamel shows how modern Western-ist intellectual prejudices have distorted our understanding of identity and conflict in the modern Middle East. Based on original archival research and an exhaustive survey of secondary literature, the author reveals a world that can only be characterized as “medieval” if one misunderstands the Middle Ages. Focussing on the long nineteenth century, the book provides a chronological continuation of much of the most interesting work being done in pre-modern Mediterranean Studies.’
BRIAN A. CATLOS
Author of Muslims of Latin Christendom and Professor, Faculty of Religious Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
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‘Lorenzo Kamel is a dedicated and meticulous scholar, extremely experienced and internationally recognized for his research methodology. His extensive archival work, which forms the basis of many of his most important publications, is impressive by any academic standard. His archival research, informed by exemplary linguistic skills, has, without question, created new understandings of the complex dynamics shaping our inquiry into modern European empires, and the history of the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Middle East from Empire to Sealed Identities will continue this outstanding trend.’
SARA ROY
Senior Research Scholar, Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES)

In occasione dell’Anno Europeo del Patrimonio Culturale 2018 il Dipartimento di Beni Culturali dell’Università di Bologna ha promosso e organizzato un convegno internazionale, tenutosi a Ravenna nei giorni 21-23 novembre 2018, attraverso il quale, sotto l’umbrella subject del Grand Tour, indagare gli aspetti storici ed attuali relativi al valore
culturale e turistico delle diverse tipologie di beni rientranti nel largo concetto di ‘patrimonio culturale’. Il consesso, strutturato in cinque specifiche sessioni cui hanno partecipato studiosi italiani, francesi, spagnoli ed ungheresi, ha voluto anche dare avvio ad un percorso di valorizzazione delle diverse, ma integrate, competenze e attitudini di
ricerca presenti nel Dipartimento, evidenziando così la multidisciplinarietà che lo caratterizza e la trasversalità di talune indagini e riflessioni scientifiche. Con la pubblicazione degli atti del convegno ravennate non solo si è voluto approfondire storicamente i concetti di patrimonio culturale, viaggio, e turismo, distinti, o collegati nell'ambito del fenomeno del Grand Tour, ma si è inteso esprimere soprattutto la valenza del concetto di condivisione sociale e culturale, che ha permesso fenomeni di vasta portata e di grande incidenza nella storia pubblica come appunto questo del Grand Tour. La condivisione ha implicato nel tempo un percorso complesso di conoscenza dell’altro da sé e sia che si tratti di individui, che delle loro reti sociali, che ancora delle loro sovrastrutture culturali. La condivisione si rivela, così, il vero strumento attraverso il quale “spezzare il pane della scienza

La aceptación de España por las Naciones Unidas se convertía a principios de los años cincuenta del siglo XX en un rompecabezas para los países occidentales. El margen entre el rechazo ideológico a un régimen antidemocrático, por un lado, y por otro los intereses nacionales y la construcción de un sistema de seguridad occidental se estrechaba a menudo de manera considerable. En la búsqueda de normalización de la política exterior española entrará de lleno Italia. ¿Qué papel juegan las relaciones culturales y las diplomático-culturales entre Roma y Madrid desde 1945 hasta 1975 en el marco de las relaciones exteriores de España con Occidente? Atendiendo a algunos espacios privilegiados de la construcción y de las quiebras de las relaciones ítaloespañolas, se indagan en este texto las complejas y, al mismo tiempo, estimulantes relaciones entre dos países que, solo cuando la democracia se volvió a convertir en realidad en España, gozarán de las ventajas de la bilateralidad y de la cooperación multilateral. El Mediterráneo, el Colegio de Bolonia, los Juegos Olímpicos de 1960, el cine y el arte de vanguardia son algunos de los escenarios principales a los que se enfrentan los autores de este libro.

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e, successivamente, la delicata fase di transizione russa dal comunismo all’economia di mercato, cercando di mettere in luce i problemi incontrati dal Paese nell’instaurare la democrazia. L'ultima parte analizza la figura della Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo ed il suo ruolo specifico nella delicata fase di transizione economica della Russia.

Si è cercato, attraverso l’analisi delle interviste contenute all’interno della Notte della Repubblica, non solo di analizzare le risposte alle domande che un Paese intero ha posto ai terroristi attraverso la voce di Zavoli, ma anche di rintracciare una contro-narrazione, di tener conto dell’eterogeneità delle voci degli intervistati. Fornire nuove proposte interpretative e modificare la struttura narrativa accettata dall’opinione pubblica su questo periodo è possibile solo attraverso una rilettura che preveda lo spostamento del focus verso le storie individuali: ciò permette di toccare con mano una piccola parte dell’intreccio degli eventi, li sottrae alla cristallizzazione e li riconduce alla difficoltà del reale.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

The European Union (EU) has closely correlated different aspects of the peace process in Bosnia with progress towards European accession. The ‘power of attraction’ of EU membership would presumably induce the Bosnian authorities to accept the adaptation costs of political and economic transformation. However, the Europeanisation approach has not produced the expected results. The track record of the EU’s policies towards Bosnia represents a paradigmatic case of what would happen if almost nothing works as efficiently as in the case of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. The article investigates the causes of EU policy failure in Bosnia and claims that the EU has not effectively responded to three challenges: 1) adjust the process to the needs of an ethnically divided post-war state; 2) preserve the credibility of accession conditionality, and 3) convey the proper messages on how to comply with EU rules. Therefore, the article argues for a more cohesive and consistent EU approach towards Bosnia.

Istruzione, ricerca e applicazione: tra ‘800 e ‘900 questi concetti segnano lo sviluppo di Milano, città politecnica, industriale e sanitaria ancora a misura d’uomo, dove scienziati e intellettuali collaboravano, si incontravano, discutevano, litigavano, frequentavano i medesimi circoli e le medesime istituzioni.
Milano fu un laboratorio per la proliferazione di istituzioni tecnico-scientifiche e sanitarie: riunirle in una rete di alta cultura fu il sogno ambizioso di Francesco Brioschi, promotore del Consorzio degli Istituti d’istruzione superiore (1875), e di Luigi Mangiagalli, fondatore degli Istituti clinici di perfezionamento (1905).
Proprio ora che università e industria non sembrano più capaci di trasferirsi competenze e idee, è cruciale riflettere su un modello a rete che nacque in risposta alle esigenze produttive della città, coinvolgendo amministrazioni locali, industria, commercio e società civile. Venticinque studiosi, scelti per la loro specifica competenza, ricostruiscono qui le origini e l’evoluzione di questa eccezionale rete di scuole, laboratori, cliniche e ospedali. Quello analizzato in Milano scientifica è un capitolo tanto importante quanto dimenticato della storia delle istituzioni scientifiche cittadine. Rileggerlo aiuterà a capire il presente e a immaginare il futuro della «città più città d’Italia», posta di fronte a nuove sfide.

The goal of this work is to describe the relations and contacts between the most representative italian left wing terror group and the East Germany intelligence service at the time of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro, one of the most investigated crimes in the italian 70's.

This article argues that the post-Dayton political organisation of Bosnia represents an exemplary illustration of the difficulties associated with the empirical application of the pluralist model of “consociational democracy”. The country’s political system has been predicated on the existence of consensus and the spirit of cooperation among the three ethnic groups without, however, offering any electoral or political incentives to their leaderships to cooperate. Also, the inclusion of several elements to the Dayton accords of a partition approach to conflict resolution has even encouraged the ethnic leaderships to maintain their nationalistic programs and their endeavours to exploit the aforementioned power-sharing arrangements. Indeed, the structural deficiencies of the Dayton agreement have permitted nationalists to continue implementing their ethnic
agendas and have accounted for the slow progress towards the implementation of the Bosnian peace process. Therefore, this article elaborates on the international policies in Bosnia, aimed at transforming the country into a viable multiethnic state, and highlights the significance of motivations for implementing the peace process.

La convinzione che il lavoro dello storico debba assolvere una irrinunciabile, salvifica funzione etico-civile non è certo rara nell’Accademia.
Il filo rosso che attraversa i saggi riprodotti nel volume rimanda invece a un’altra concezione del lavoro storico, probabilmente minoritaria tra gli addetti ai lavori ma non per questo, riteniamo, meno legittima, concezione che rifiuta l’idea che l’attività di ricerca debba prefiggersi obiettivi extrascientifici.
Secondo tale concezione, lo storico, nell’esercizio della sua professione, deve ripudiare ogni torsione funzionalista e strumentale della ricerca, ogni suggestione etico-pedagogica.
Deve respingere ogni blandizia e lusinga provenienti da chi gli volesse commissionare compiti terapeutici, di rigenerazione e legittimazione di sistemi politico-istituzionali.
Lo storico, se veramente tale, non deve partecipare, a parer nostro, ad alcun processo di nation building. Né costruttore di identità né dispensatore di virtù civiche, deve anzi correre il rischio che il proprio lavoro possa rivelare una contraddizione, insanabile, tra le esigenze della professione storica e i doveri civici discendenti dall’appartenenza a una comune cittadinanza.
The belief that the work of the historian is to fulfill an ethical and civic function is certainly not rare within the Academy.
The thread that runs through the essays reproduced in this volume refers to a different conception of the historical work, instead: though probably in the minority among the experts, we believe this conception, rejecting the idea that research must serve extra-scientific goals, to be equally legitimate.
Accordingly, the historian, in the exercise of his profession, must repudiate any ethical-pedagogical suggestion; he should reject any blandishment and flattery from those who would want to commission him therapeutic tasks, aimed at regenerating and legitimizing political and institutional systems. The historian, if truly such, should not take part, in our opinion, in any process of nation building. Neither a creator of identity nor a promoter of civic virtues, he must indeed take the risk that his work may reveal an irreconcilable contradiction between his professional duties and the civic obligations deriving from belonging to a common citizenship.
Luca Tedesco è Professore associato in Storia contemporanea presso l’Università degli Studi Roma Tre.

O presente artigo é um balanço bibliográfico em torno do Imperialismo e sua relação com as modificações globais provocadas pela crise do capitalismo na Inglaterra a partir de 1870, estudada, principalmente, por Vladimir Ilitch Lenin, além de outros autores como Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburgo,John Hobson, Rudolf Hilferding, Karl Kautsky, Nikolai Bukharin, Aloísio Azevedo, Eric Hobsbawm e os liberais Joseph Schumpeter e Norman Angell. Defende-se a ideia de que a complexa e densa discussão deve levar em conta esta crise e seus desdobramentos no campo econômico financeiro, bem como o contexto anterior do capitalismo com suas mudanças estruturais, que levou a um acirramento dos conflitos entre as potências em nome de colônias, lucro e riquezas, processo que culminou numa “guerra imperialista”, como denomina Lenin a guerra de 1914-18, bem como se ressalta a importância da transição do velho para o moderno capitalismo dentro deste complexo processo.
Palavras-chave: Imperialismo, capitalismo, crise.


The purpose of this article is to discuss the Imperialism and its relations among the
global modifications caused by the Capitalism crisis in the late 1870’s England, studied by autors such as Vladimir Ilitch Lenin and Eric Hobsbawm and putted in perspective by others like Aloísio Azevedo. The main thesis is that the complex and dense discussion must consider its economic and finantial developments, as well as its previous context which led the economic powers into a battle over the colonies, the
profit and its riches; process that Lenin called “Imperial War”, refering to the First
World War and the transition between the old and the modern Capitalism inside this
complex process.
Keywords: Imperialism, Capitalism, crisis.

The author Julia Warth was awarded the Gerhard-Ritter-Preis for her biography of Walther von Seydlitz-Kurtzbach. Taken prisoner after surrendering in Stalingrad, the general, descended from a famous military family, came forward as the leader of the "Bund Deutscher Offiziere" and vice-president of the "Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland"  founded in September resp. July 1943 in the POW camp Lunyovo near Moscow. Aside from certain unsubstantiated value judgements concerning Seydlitz´ patriotic motives this detailed biography conveys an objective portrait of the ill-fated Prussian-German officer who fell out with Hitler when attemtping to save his country from total demise.

Il genocidio non è prerogativa dei soli Stati autoritari. Tenendo costantemente in tensione analisi concettuale e indagine storiografica, I dannati senza terra ricostruisce, nelle sue inquietanti sfaccettature, la storia della catastrofe indigena perpetrata dalle “democrazie” occidentali: dagli Stati Uniti al Canada, dall’Australia alla Nuova Zelanda. Veri e propri genocidi, realizzati per mezzo di politiche eliminazioniste di natura fisica, biologica e culturale: dal massacro all’assimilazione coatta, passando per la sterilizzazione eugenetica. Ne emerge un quadro al tempo stesso commosso, provocatorio e rigoroso, che intende restituire dignità alle vittime dimenticate e rispondere alla sfida lanciata dal revisionismo storico e al suo tentativo di cancellare i crimini più efferati dell’Occidente.

dieci anni di lavoro di Gabriele Cortonesi e Friederike Strunz in archivi italiani e tedeschi hanno consentito di costruire il medaglione di oltre 1300 civili e militari che furono coinvolti nella drammatica vicenda. Il volume di quasi 800 pagine è stato volutamente messo in vendita dalla Extempora di Siena a prezzo molto contenuto (25 euro) per favorirne la diffusione, al di là degli specialisti, tra le famiglie che sono state interessate direttamente.