Stalin and Togliatti: Italy and the Origins of the Cold War (Cold War International History Project) 1st Edition

by Elena Agarossi (Author), Victor Zaslavsky (Author)

2 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0804774321

ISBN-10: 0804774323

Why is ISBN important?

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Hardcover

$43.99 - $70.00

Other Sellers

from

Other Sellers

See all 4 versions

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by OrangeandBlueBooks

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

4 used from $43.99

& FREE Shipping

Usually ships within 3 to 5 days.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.

FREE delivery: Feb 26 - March 3 Details

Fastest delivery: Feb 20 - 26

4 new from $45.00

Available at a lower price from other sellers that may not offer free Prime shipping.

Stalin and Togliatti reveals the dependence of the Italian Communist Party on Soviet decisionmaking in the early Cold War and the willingness of Stalin to sacrifice the interests of the Italian Communist Party to Soviet foreign interests. It explores the connection between the domestic Italian politics and the international affairs during the final phases of the Second World War and in the first years of the Cold War.

The authors employ previously classified documents in Russian and Italian archives, including reports to Stalin on the virtually daily meetings of Palmiro Togliatti, head of the Italian Communist Party, with Soviet diplomats. This recent, post-revisionist scholarship underscores the role of Stalin's ambitions and their incompatibility with liberal-democratic systems in the development of the Cold War. Stalin and Togliatti come out as shrewd politicians, implacable enemies of the capitalist West, yet acutely aware of the limits of their power.

Stalin and Togliatti is a translation and expansion of a prizewinning book published in Italian in 1997 and updated in 2007.

More items to explore

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Duane W. Roller
32
Hardcover
$28.45
Mark Stille
66
Paperback
$18.49
Adrian Goldsworthy
176
Hardcover
$25.12
Martyn Rady
337
Hardcover
$23.03
Mark Lardas
42
Paperback
$18.25
Gabriele Esposito
46
Paperback
$17.74

Special offers and product promotions

Amazon Business : For business-only pricing, quantity discounts and FREE Shipping. Register a free business account

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The book's merits include putting the Italian story fully within the context of the Cold War, describing in detail the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to mask Palmiro Togliatti's true intentions, clarifying questions of Italian communist policy that have been debated in the past, and illustrating Antonio Gramsci's cultural 'hegemony' in action." (Spencer Scala Slavic Review)

"The book has a sense of history in the making: it combines at times gripping narrative with sober synopses of complicated and controversial policies." (Carl Levy, Department of Politics University of London)

"Agarossi and Zaslavsky fill in details on Togliatti's relations with Stalin during the early years of the Cold War . . . The authors convincingly show how subservient Togliatti was to the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s." (Alexander De Grand The Historian)

"The scholarship that went into this work is analytically excellent and rigorous, and superior to anything that exists on the connections between Italian communists and Moscow in the English-language historiography." (Vladislav Zubok Temple University)

"The revision and translation of a much-debated study that was published in two Italian editions in 1997 and 2007, this volume represents the life achievement of two influential historians of Cold War Italy . . . [M]eticulous research." (Dario Gaggio Journal of Modern History)

About the Author

Elena Agarossi is Professor of Contemporary History at the Scuola Superiore di Pubblica Amministrazione in Rome and member of the Wilson Center European Alumni Association. Victor Zaslavsky, who died late in 2009, was Professor of Political Sociology at the Free International University for Social Sciences in Rome.

Product details

Publisher : Stanford University Press; 1st edition (February 4, 2011)
Language : English
ISBN-10 : 0804774323
ISBN-13 : 978-0804774321
Item Weight : 1.55 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,413,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,431 in Political Parties (Books)
- #4,912 in International Diplomacy (Books)
- #6,773 in Italian History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
2 ratings

Customer reviews

5 star		70%
4 star 0% (0%)		0%
3 star		30%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How are ratings calculated?

Top review from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

tony chase

Book Mistitled?

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2013

I have just started this book but the title is confusing. As any scholar of Italian history is surely aware after reading Pavone's majesterial work, A CIVIL WAR (now finally translated into English), the cold war in Italy (between democratic socialism and capitalism, whether liberal or fascist) began as early as 1920 in Turin with the workers' resistance to corporate rule. The Italian civil war (1943-45) was shaped most dramatically by Italians in Italy, not by politicians in exile or in the Kremlin. From ditching 'the Internationale' to supporting the return of the monarchy in Rome to acquiescing in the Americans' ability to buy election outcomes (and not just in post-war Europe) it would seem Stalin was rather less successful than the liberal West in extending his imperial writ over four continents. But from the defeat in Vietnam through the current Great Recession and the stubborn crisis of capitalist profitability, cracks in the foundation of the US-managed world system have clearly caused, in their turn, structural damage to the American dream. Hopefully Stanford's outside readers and editorial crew asked the tough questions suggested here of Rossi's manuscript long before it made it to galleys. UC Press has since the 1960s brought to readers a much more politically diverse list than Stanford - perhaps Stanford will catch up now that the cold war has been over for 25 years.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Dr. R. Brandon

A Supremely Well Researched Treatise on the Policies of the Italian Communist Party

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is a meticulously researched academic publication from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre, one of a series on aspects of the Cold War. Whilst academic in its approach, almost every paragraph is backed by references and notes, this is a very well written and very readable work. However, it does demand a fair level of concentration from the reader. There are no illustrations.
The authors consider the background to the Cold War, the international Communist movement under Stalin and the Soviet plans for the shape of post WWII Europe. The specific case of Italy (and to some extent France), which contained the largest Communist Party in those countries under “Western” influence and the Soviet trained leader of the Party, Palmiro Togliatti, is then made the subject of the rest of the book. In considering key questions such as whether the Italian Communist Party should follow an aggressive, revolutionary line, or play along with the democratic process the authors show that Togliatti took instructions, virtually on a daily basis through the Soviet embassy, and followed the line dictated personally by Stalin. Togliatti, to his immense credit, was able to persuade his often restless party to follow his instructions even when these seemed counter-intuitive and often not in their own national interest. The approach to the question of the sovereignty of Trieste, the treatment of returning Italian POWs from Russia and the rejection of the Marshall Plan were all instances in which the interests and attitudes of the Soviet Union were made paramount and without doubt damaged the interests of the Italian Communist Party. Yet Togliatti loyally towed the Party line and dragooned his followers into accepting the policy dictats from Moscow.
Much of the research utilises documentation briefly available after the overthrow of the Russian Communist party and the opening of Eastern European archives after 1989. Much to the surprise of western researchers who had expected to find only generalised and oblique documentation, the archives are immense and highly detailed, no less so than the self-incriminating Nazi documentation discovered after the end of WWII. The book is fascinating in that it also overturns the widely held theory by western media that the European Communist Parties of Italy and France were independent and often wayward players in the Soviet camp, nothing could be further from the truth.
A fascinating book for all interested in modern European history which should be made required reading for would-be TV history commentators.

One person found this helpful

See all reviews