Joshua Arthurs – författare

An account of the extraordinary period between July 25, 1943, when Mussolini's deposal was announced, and September 8, 1943, when the Italian state disintegrated, told through the voices of ordinary peopleAt 10:47 PM on July 25, 1943, Italians were suddenly compelled to confront Fascism as the past. An extraordinary radio broadcast announced to the nation that Benito Mussolini had been removed from office. Moments later, millions took to the streets in celebration, smashing statues, burning Fascist Party cards, chanting and singing, and beating anyone in a black shirt. Mussolini's regime of two decades seemed to have melted away in a matter of hours. For the next forty-five days, Italians experienced an intermezzo marked by extreme emotions, unstable values and relationships, and potent debates over their society's past, present, and future. Forty-Five Days explores the immediate aftermath of the Italian Fascist regime, from the fall of Mussolini on July 25th to the Armistice of September 8th. This fine-grained narrative tells the story of this fascinating, tumultuous moment as it unfolded through the voices of ordinary people: factory workers, peasants, soldiers, and schoolchildren; staunch Fascists and fervent anti-Fascists; Northerners and Southerners; Catholics and Jews. Crowds celebrated the restoration of freedom and anticipated a new era of peace and stability, but they also faced the challenge of how to reestablish its political, social, and moral foundations. Who had been a true Fascist and who remained uncompromised? How should communities cleanse themselves and rebuild after two decades of authoritarian rule? What should come next for the nation's leadership? Italians of all stripes confronted these fundamental questions.Drawing on diaries, letters, legal records, police reports, and oral histories, Joshua Arthurs reconstructs the collapse of the first modern state to declare itself totalitarian and the social wreckage left in its wake. Forty-Five Days offers a groundbreaking history of this pivotal moment, providing new perspectives on the social dynamics of political transition to the present day.

The cultural and material legacies of the Roman Republic and Empire in evidence throughout Rome have made it the "Eternal City." Too often, however, this patrimony has caused Rome to be seen as static and antique, insulated from the transformations of the modern world. In Excavating Modernity, Joshua Arthurs dramatically revises this perception, arguing that as both place and idea, Rome was strongly shaped by a radical vision of modernity imposed by Mussolini's regime between the two world wars.Italian Fascism's appropriation of the Roman past—the idea of Rome, or romanità— encapsulated the Fascist virtues of discipline, hierarchy, and order; the Fascist "new man" was modeled on the Roman legionary, the epitome of the virile citizen-soldier. This vision of modernity also transcended Italy's borders, with the Roman Empire providing a foundation for Fascism's own vision of Mediterranean domination and a European New Order. At the same time, romanità also served as a vocabulary of anxiety about modernity. Fears of population decline, racial degeneration and revolution were mapped onto the barbarian invasions and the fall of Rome. Offering a critical assessment of romanità and its effects, Arthurs explores the ways in which academics, officials, and ideologues approached Rome not as a site of distant glories but as a blueprint for contemporary life, a source of dynamic values to shape the present and future.