Originally published in Italian in 1980, Gli Stati Uniti e il fascismo: Alle origini dell'egemonia Americana in Italia is regarded today as a crucial text on the relationship between the United States and Italy during the interwar years. Aside from the addition of two new prefaces - one by the author and one by the book's translator, Molly Tambor - the original text has remained unchanged, so that Anglophone readers now have the opportunity to engage with this classic work. By analyzing the enduring relationship between the United States - especially its financial establishment - and fascist Italy up until Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia in 1935, this book provides answers to some key questions about the interconnectedness of America's rise to hegemonic global financial power in the twentieth century and its support of Italian fascism during this time.

'Gian Giacomo Migone figures as the foremost authority on Italo-American relations in the Fascist era. In his scintillating magnum opus, he traces fascist foreign policy forward and not backward through the distorted optic of World War II. Americans, he shows, admired Mussolini more than any other foreign statesman in the 1920s. And Rome’s establishment, expertly advised by the Morgan Bank, pursued domestic stability by serving as the privileged partner of the United States. All those who consider fascism inherently expansionist must come to terms with Migone’s brilliantly marshaled evidence.'

Stephen A. Schuker - William W. Corcoran Professor of History, University of Virginia

'Still the most masterful work exploring American capitalism’s complicity with the political economy of Italian fascism, how welcome to have Migone’s strong narrative in English just as studies of the history of capitalism finally rebound.'

Victoria de Grazia - Moore Collegiate Professor of History, Columbia University

'This is a concise well-documented piece of diplomatic history. The author uses archives from the United States, Italy, Britain, and elsewhere, governmental and private, an impressive list that helps give the work its breadth. It is unusual for such a text to stand the test of time, but that is indeed the case with The United States and Fascist Italy. I’m delighted to know that this book is going to [re]appear.'

David Ellwood - The Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Europe, Bologna

'This careful and accomplished translation of a richly detailed account of the US relationship, governmental and financial, with Fascist Italy from Mussolini’s accession to power in 1922 to the eve of war in 1939 was originally published in Italy in 1980. The author … provides a remarkably thoughtful preface to this edition, offering reflections on the historian’s responsibilities.'

Source: Choice