Stephen Gundle – författare

The Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini was killed in 1945 and his body was exhibited upside down in Milan before an angry crowd. The repudiation of the dictator who had led his people to disaster was complete. But his story did not end there. The Duce lived on thanks to a multifaceted and complex legacy. He remained a constant topic of interest due to the activism of his widow and the work of the mass media. He symbolised deeply-rooted ideas about masculinity, national identity and political leadership. His image was embedded in various ways in the physical environment. He haunted the postwar republic after having dominated the political landscape in life.In Mussolini's Ghost Stephen Gundle explores the many aspects of Mussolini's strange afterlife, be it through the fate of his statues and the places that Mussolini was most associated with, his depiction in film and television, his impact on political life, his treatment in public history and his place in popular culture. Gundle argues that the root causes of Il Duce's disturbing persistence lie in the way Italians negotiated the transition from war to peace and from Fascism to democracy. Instead of acknowledging the enthusiastic backing many had given to a criminal dictatorship, many Italians behaved as though Fascism had never really existed. The dictator was instead re-cast as a flawed but well-meaning family man. Thanks to this and other strange reconfigurations, the grip Mussolini established over the popular mind was never properly dismantled. Gundle employs tools of collective psychology to develop a bold new interpretation of the causes of Mussolini's posthumous endurance that makes comparisons with the situation in West Germany.

Glamour is one of the most tantalizing and bewitching aspects of contemporary culture - but also one of the most elusive. The aura of celebrity, the style of the fashion world, the vanity of the rich and beautiful, and the publicity-driven rites of café society are all imbued with its irresistible magnetism. But what exactly is glamour? Where does it come from? How old is it? And can anyone quite capture its magic? Stephen Gundle answers all these questions and more in this first ever history of the phenomenon, from Paris in the tumultuous final decades of the eighteenth century through to Hollywood, New York, and Monte Carlo in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from Napoleon to Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe, from Beau Brummell to Gianni Versace. Throughout, the book captures the excitement and sex appeal of glamour while exposing its mechanisms and exploring its sleazy and sometimes tragic underside. As Gundle shows, while glamour is exciting and magnetic, its promise is ultimately an illusion that can only ever be partially fulfilled.

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.

Feminine beauty has been more associated with national cultural identity in Italy than in any other country. From the time of Dante and Petrarch, ideals of beauty have informed artists’ work. This intriguing and gloriously illustrated book investigates the many debates this topic has provoked in modern Italy. Radicals and monarchists, Catholics, Fascists, and Communists have all championed specific ideas about female beauty. First theater and the press, then, later, cinema and television inherited from literature and art the task of articulating ideals. Gundle examines Fascism's failure to mold the ideal modern Italian woman, the rise of beauty pageants after World War Two, the professional and public roles of television actresses, the election of the first non-white Miss Italy in 1996, and the careers and images of beautiful women who have been seen to embody the country—Queen Margherita of Savoy, the opera singer Lina Cavalieri, and movie icons Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Bellucci, and Sophia Loren, who remains the living symbol of Italy and one of the most beautiful women in the world.

The New Italian Republic charts the breakdown of the old party system and examines the changed political climate that has allowed Berlusconi to rise as Italy's new master and subsequently precipitated his rapid fall from power.

The New Italian Republic charts the breakdown of the old party system and examines the changed political climate that has allowed Berlusconi to rise as Italy's new master and subsequently precipitated his rapid fall from power.

The cult of the Duce is the first book to explore systematically the personality cult of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. It examines the factors which informed the cult and looks in detail at its many manifestations in the visual arts, architecture, political spectacle and the media. The conviction that Mussolini was an exceptional individual first became dogma among Fascists and then was communicated to the people at large. Intellectuals and artists helped fashion the idea of him as a new Caesar while the modern media of press, photography, cinema and radio aggrandised his every public act. The book considers the way in which Italians experienced the personality cult and analyses its controversial resonances in the postwar period. Academics and students with interests in Italian and European history and politics will find the volume indispensable to an understanding of Fascism, Italian society and culture, and modern political leadership.Among the contributions is an Afterword by Mussolini’s leading biographer, R.J.B. Bosworth.

The cult of the Duce is the first book to explore systematically the personality cult of the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. It examines the factors which informed the cult and looks in detail at its many manifestations in the visual arts, architecture, political spectacle and the media. The conviction that Mussolini was an exceptional individual first became dogma among Fascists and then was communicated to the people at large. Intellectuals and artists helped fashion the idea of him as a new Caesar while the modern media of press, photography, cinema and radio aggrandised his every public act. The book considers the way in which Italians experienced the personality cult and analyses its controversial resonances in the postwar period. Academics and students with interests in Italian and European history and politics will find the volume indispensable to an understanding of Fascism, Italian society and culture, and modern political leadership.Among the contributions is an Afterword by Mussolini’s leading biographer, R.J.B. Bosworth.

In the postwar years, Italy underwent a far-reaching process of industrialization that transformed the country into a leading industrial power. Throughout most of this period, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) remained a powerful force in local government and civil society. However, as Stephen Gundle observes, the PCI was increasingly faced with challenges posed by modernization, particularly by mass communication, commercial cultural industries, and consumerism. Between Hollywood and Moscow is an analysis of the PCI’s attempts to cope with these problems in an effort to maintain its organization and subculture.Gundle focuses on the theme of cultural policy, examining how the PCI’s political strategies incorporated cultural policies and activities that were intended to respond to the Americanization of daily life in Italy. In formulating this policy, Gundle contends, the Italian Communists were torn between loyalty to the alternative values generated by the Communist tradition and adaptation to the dominant influences of Italian modernization. This equilibrium eventually faltered because the attractive aspects of Americanization and pop culture proved more influential than the PCI’s intellectual and political traditions. The first analysis in English of the cultural policies and activities of the PCI, this book will appeal to readers with an interest in modern Italy, the European left, political science, and media studies.

The intersection between film stardom and politics is an understudied phenomenon of Fascist Italy, despite the fact that the Mussolini regime deemed stardom important enough to warrant sustained attention and interference. Focused on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945, this book examines the development of an Italian star system and evaluates its place in film production and distribution. The performances and careers of several major stars, including Isa Miranda, Vittorio De Sica, Amedeo Nazzari, and Alida Valli, are closely analyzed in terms of their relationships to the political sphere and broader commercial culture, with consideration of their fates in the aftermath of Fascism. A final chapter explores the place of the stars in popular memory and representations of the Fascist film world in postwar cinema.

The intersection between film stardom and politics is an understudied phenomenon of Fascist Italy, despite the fact that the Mussolini regime deemed stardom important enough to warrant sustained attention and interference. Focused on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945, this book examines the development of an Italian star system and evaluates its place in film production and distribution. The performances and careers of several major stars, including Isa Miranda, Vittorio De Sica, Amedeo Nazzari, and Alida Valli, are closely analyzed in terms of their relationships to the political sphere and broader commercial culture, with consideration of their fates in the aftermath of Fascism. A final chapter explores the place of the stars in popular memory and representations of the Fascist film world in postwar cinema.

Italian cinema gave rise to a number of the best-known films of the postwar years, from Rome Open City to Bicycle Thieves. Although some neorealist film-makers would have preferred to abolish stars altogether, the public adored them and producers needed their help in relaunching the national film industry. This book explores the many conflicts that arose in Italy between 1945 and 1953 over stars and stardom, offering intimate studies of the careers of both well-known and less familiar figures, shedding new light on the close relationship forged between cinema and society during a time of political transition and shifting national identities.

Italian cinema gave rise to a number of the best-known films of the postwar years, from Rome Open City to Bicycle Thieves. Although some neorealist film-makers would have preferred to abolish stars altogether, the public adored them and producers needed their help in relaunching the national film industry. This book explores the many conflicts that arose in Italy between 1945 and 1953 over stars and stardom, offering intimate studies of the careers of both well-known and less familiar figures, shedding new light on the close relationship forged between cinema and society during a time of political transition and shifting national identities.

This book brings together a group of British and Italian scholars who have made significant contributions to the historiography of modern Italy over the last three decades, dedicated to the influence of Paul Ginsborg.