Excavating Modernity

Rezensionen / Stimmen

Arthurs does an excellent job in showing the debates and struggles between contrasting visions of Romanita in the 1938-1945 period.. In the end, Arthurs's book is an enormous contribution to our understanding of the fascist cultural project.

- Paul Baxa (American Historical Review) Is there anything left to say about Fascist Italy's connections to the country's Roman past? Surprisingly enough, there is, and Joshua Arthurs's new book illustrates how non-party institutions configured the image of that past institutionally, outside of the party and regime propaganda machines.. Arthurs's narrative is crisp, lucid and rich with little-known and often unknown information. The particular accomplishment here is the detailed and thoughtful examination of seldom-studied institututions and the individuals who comprised them that were not explicitly fascist, but whose studies, exhibits, journals, and conferences cohered with the Regime.

- Diane Yvonne Ghirardo (Canadian Journal of History) That Italian fascism would adopt Rome as a fundamental part of its ideology, though it seems obvious now, was not a given at the start of the movement. As Joshua Arthurs notes, Rome was associated with the decadent liberal state and with the Catholic Church. Fascism, in contrast, meant modernity and dynamism.. Arthurs has given us an excellent, concise summary of what Rome meant to fascism. It is a valuable guide to scholars and to general readers.

- Alexander De Grand (The Historian) With Excavating Modernity, Joshua Arthurs has contributed a welcome analysis of the place of romanita-the vogue or cult of ancient Rome-in Fascist Italy...[We] can only be grateful for this well-written, thoroughly documented, and carefully nuanced treatment.

- David D. Roberts (The Journal of Modern History)