The Italian Resistance Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies

One of the enduring myths about World War Two is that only the Allies liberated occupied Europe. Many countries had Resistance movements, and Italy's was one of the biggest and most politically radical - yet it is relatively unknown outside homeland. Within Italy many plaques and streets commemorate the actions of the partisans - a spontaneous movement from below grow once Mussolini's dictatorship started to unravel. Led by radical left forces, the Resistance trod an uneasy line fascism and their Nazi allies who had occupied the country, keeping political unity across a broad front, and maintaining alliance with the Allies. Using unpublished archival material and interviews with surviving partisans, Tom Behan tells the inspiring story of then Florence and many other cities were liberated by anti-fascists. This book also takes issue with 'revisionism', the decades to rewrite history, a process helped by 'post-fascists' now becoming a stable feature of Italian governments.

Tom Behan is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Kent. His books include The Camorra (1996); The Long Awaited Moment: The Working Class and the Italian Communist Party in Milan, 1943-48  (1997); Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre  (Pluto, 2000); See Naples and Die: The Camorra and Organized Crime (2002); The Resistible Rise of Benito Mussolini (2003) and Defiance: The Untold Story of One Man Who Stood Up To The Sicilian Mafia (2007).

Abbreviations Acknowledgements Chronology Part I Introduction: The meaning of the Resistance; How this book is structured. 1. Midnight in the Century 2. The Mafia and street kids - how fascism fell in the South 3. People, parties and partisans 4. Resistance in the mountains 5. Resistance in the cities 6. 'Aldo says 26 for one' 7. Postwar partisan activity 8. The long liberation Part II 9. Female fighters 10. The Partisan Republics 11. Organising 'terrorism' 12. An uneasy alliance Conclusion Notes Index