Driving Modernity

Massimo Moraglio is a senior researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin. He has received an EU Marie Sklodowska Curie IEF fellowship and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transport History. He has coedited the volumes The Organization of Transport: A History of Users, Industry, and Public Policy (2015) and Peripheral Flows: A Historical Perspective on Mobilities between Cores and Fringes (2016).

“…a welcome contribution to the literature on Fascist public works, most of which focus on architecture or urban planning, few of which study road-building, one of the most prolific areas of public works under Mussolini’s regime… a much needed and valuable contribution to the history of motorway building in Europe.” • Journal of Transport History“This book contributes authoritatively to the growing field of mobility history, and it also demonstrates how fruitful the history of technology can be to the study of social and political change.” • Journal of Modern History“Based on prodigious archival research, Driving Modernity explores how the Italian autostrada project grew out of a somewhat fantastic idea by a coterie of Milan businessmen into an internationally recognized technological icon of Fascist Italy. This book speaks clearly and convincingly about the political values embedded in infrastructures.” • Thomas Zeller, University of Maryland, College Park“Moraglio’s work is a deep dive into a grandiose and distinctively modern project in interwar Italy. Never before has the complex ideological character of these motorways been so clearly analyzed, from the moment of their conception to the widespread adoption of the automobile.” • Mathieu Flonneau, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, LabEx EHNE

• AcknowledgmentsList of Figures and TablesList of AcronymsIntroductionChapter 1. The Roads before the MotorwaysChapter 2. 1922: The Motorway from Milan to the Prealpine LakesChapter 3. Motorway Mania in Italy in the 1920sChapter 4. The Ordinary Roads ProblemChapter 5. From the Pedemontana Project to the Construction SuspensionChapter 6. A Case Study: The Turin–Milan MotorwayChapter 7. The 1930s: The European Utopia and the Nationalist FulfillmentChapter 8. The Bankruptcy and Legacy of the MotorwaysConclusionBibliographyIndex