Benedetto Zaccaria – författare

The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s is often described as the starting-point of the EEC/EU involvement in Western Balkan politics, as if no political relations had developed between the EEC and Yugoslavia during the Cold War era. Instead, this book shows that the origin of EEC-Yugoslav relations must be placed in the crucial decade of the 1970s. Contrary to received opinion, this work demonstrates that relations between the EEC and Yugoslavia were grounded on a strong political rationale which was closely linked to the evolution of the Cold War in Europe and the Mediterranean. The main argument is that relations between the two parties were primarily influenced by the need to prevent the expansion of Soviet influence in the Balkans and to foster détente in Europe.

This edited collection offers the first systematic account in English of Italy’s international position from Caporetto – a major turning-point in Italy’s participation in the First World War – to the end of the liberal regime in Italy in 1922. It shows that after the ‘Great War’, not only did Italy establish itself as a regional power but also achieved its post-unification ambition to be recognised, at least from a formal viewpoint, as a great power. This subject is addressed through multiple perspectives, covering Italy’s relations and mutual perceptions vis-à-vis the Allies, the vanquished nations, and the ‘New Europe’. Fourteen contributions by leading historians reappraise Italy’s role in the construction of the post-war international order, drawing on extensive multi-archival and multi-national research, combining for the first time documents from American, Austrian, British, French, German, Italian, Russian and former Yugoslav archives.