72531 - History of Contemporary Europe (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student has a thorough understanding of the historical events of contemporary Europe through the analysis of specific sources that also induces methodological skills and the independent ability to set up research.

Course contents

This course focuses on European history from the late 19th century to the present. It considers the geopolitical transformations and international relations that have occurred on the continent,with special attention to the politics of last colonization in the Mediterranean area, in Africa and Central Europe. 

Adressed to students in history and geography, the course aims to make them work together. Particular attention is therefore given to aspects related to changes in territory,  borders, and new states, and also to trade, political and economic choices determining communication routes, infrastructures, and urban settlements. Finally, attention is given to interventions to architectures and forms of socialization, to planning interventions in territories, to policies of domestic and foreign colonization, and decolonization, affecting migration flows in Europe and the Mediterranean area.

The course takes a close look at fascisms and right-wingers in continental and Mediterranean Europe, with a focus on the policies of continental colonization and in the Mediterranean basin. It focuses on the evolution of Fascist Empires, in ideological, political, economic and racial terms, concentrating on the Nazi New Order in East-Central Europe and the maturation of a project of Italian domination in the Mediterranean, African and finally Balkan areas between 1922 and 1943.

Readings/Bibliography

Readings (a complete list will be given during the course)

Patrizia Dogliani, Il fascismo degli italiani. Una storia sociale, Utet-De Agostini,2022, i capp. 4, 7 e 8.

Antonio Ferrara-Niccolò Pianciola, L'età delle migrazioni forzate. esodi e deportazioni in Europa 1853-1953, il Mulino, 2012 (4 capitoli a scelta).

Enzo Collotti, Fascismo, fascismi, Sansoni, 1989

Mark Mazower, L'Impero di Hitler. Come i nazisti governavano l'Europa occupata, Mondadori, 2010

Davide RODOGNO, Il nuovo ordine mediterraneo. Le politiche d'occupazione dell'Italia fascista in Europa, 1940-43, Bollati e Borighieri, 2003/2014.

4. Mark MAZOWER, Salonicco, città di Fantasmi. Cristiani, Musulmani ed ebrei tra 1430 e 1950, Garzati, 2007

Nicolas Doumanis, Una faccia, una razza, Le colonie italiane nell'Egeo. Fatti e misfatti della vetrina del colonialismo italiano, il Mulino, 2003.

Deborah Paci, Corsica fatal, Malta baluardo di romanità. L'irredentismo fascista nel mare nostrum (1922-1942) Mondadori 2015

F. De Ninno “Fascisti sul mare. La marina e gli ammiragli di Mussolini”, Laterza, insieme a Paolo Frascari, Il Mare, il Mulino, 2008

F. Cresti; M. Cricco, Storia della Libia contemporanea. Dal dominio ottomano alla morte di Gheddafi, Roma, Carocci editore, 2012,

G. Breccia-S. Marcuzzi, Le guerre di Libia. Un secolo di conquiste e rivoluzioni, Il Mulino, 2021

Simona Troilo, Pietre d'oltremare. Scavare, conservare, immaginare l'Impero 1899-1940, Laterza, 2021

9. Timothy Snyder, Terra nera. L’olocausto tra storia e presente, Rizzoli,

Nicholas Stargardt, La guerra tedesca. Una nazione sotto le armi, 1939-1945, Neri Pozza, 2018,

Gustavo Corni, Il sogno del “grande spazio”. Le politiche d’occupazione nell’Europa nazista, Laterza, 2005

Emanuele Ertola, In terra d’Africa. Gli italiani che colonizzarono l’impero, Laterza, Roma, 2017.

Marina Cattaruzza in L’Italia e il confine orientale, il Mulino, Bologna, 2007,

Annamaria Vinci, Sentinelle della patria. Il fascismo al confine orientale 1918-1941, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2011,

Roberta Pergher, Dalle Alpi all’Africa. La politica fascista per l’”italianizzazione” delle nuove province (1922-1943), Viella, Roma, 2020

A cura di Marco Bresciani, Le destre europee. Conservatori e radicali tra le due guerre, Carocci, 2021 (5 capp. a scelta)

Olivier Wieviorka. Storia della Resistenza nell'Europa occidentale, Einaudi.

Paolo Frascani, Il Mare, il Mulino

Valeria DEPLANO, L'Africa in casa. Propaganda e cultura coloniale nell'Italia fascista, Le Monnier, 2015

Timoty SNYDER, Terre di sangue. L'Europa nella morsa di Hitler e di Stalin, Rizzoli 2011

Gabriele Montalbano, Les Italiens de Tunisie, EFRome, 2023

Michele Sarfatti, I confini di una persecuzione. Il fascismo e gli ebrei fuori d'Italia, Viella, 2023

Thomas Schlemmer, Invasori, non vittime. La campagna italiana in Russia 1941-43, Laterza,2009

Paolo Fonzi, Oltre i confini. Le occupazioni italiane durante la seconda guerra mondiale (1939-1943), Le Monnier, 2020

Paolo Fonzi, Fame di guerra. L'occupazione italiana della Grecia 1941-43, Carocci, 2019

Alberto Basciani, L'Impero dei balcani, L'occupazione italiana dell'Albania, 1939-1943, Viella, 2022

Porti di frontiera. Industria e commercio a Trieste, Fiume e Pola tra le due guerre mondiali, a cura di L. Cerasi, R. Petri, S. Petrungaro, Viella2008

Claudio Fogu, The fishing net and the spider web. Mediterranean Imagineries and the Making of Italians, Palgrave, 2021

Books and articles can be read in their original languages

Teaching methods

Front lessons and discussion in class

Assessment methods

A student who attends at least 75% of the lectures is considered to be attending.

Those who have attended at least 24 out of 30 hours, thus missed a maximum of 3 lectures, are to be considered attending.

On this basis, the mode of the examination varies.
Attendees are compulsorily required to prepare a written paper. The topic of the paper should be agreed with the lecturer before the course is completed. The 'paper consists of 15min/20max folders of 2000/2200 characters each. By 10min/15max for non-attenders.

Final paper in English, French, or Spanish is permitted.

Non-attenders must choose from the bibliography 4 texts to be presented at the oral, as homogeneous as possible such that they can be integrated into a general discourse prepared by them and presented before the exam in at least two written pages that are a framework and introduction to their oral exposition.

For all, written exposition and then oral must deal in full with a historical topic, discussing its interpretation and historiographical debate.

The student's achievement of an organic view of the topics covered and the knowledge provided for the discipline jointly with their critical use, the demonstration of the possession of a mastery of expression and specific language will be evaluated with grades 28 to 30.

A mnemonic knowledge of the subject and an ability to synthesize and analyze articulated in correct, but not always appropriate, written and oral language will lead to fair grades of 25 to 27.

Formative gaps and/or inappropriate language, albeit in the context of basic knowledge of the examination material, will lead to grades ranging from 18 to 24.

Formative gaps, inappropriate language, lack of orientation within the bibliographic materials provided by the course will be negatively graded and the student will be asked to re-submit.

Teaching tools

Frontal classes and seminar classes with the readings, analysis and discussion of documents, maps, video etc. Choice of the individual final paper in a collective discussion in class

Office hours

See the website of Patrizia Dogliani