Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power and Patrimony
Silvio Berlusconi, a self-made man with a taste for luxurious living, owner of a huge television empire and the politician who likened a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp guard—small wonder that much of democratic Europe and America has responded with considerable dismay and disdain to his governance of Italy.
Paul Ginsborg, contemporary Italy's foremost historian, explains here why we should take Berlusconi seriously. His new book combines historical narrative–Berlusconi's childhood in the dynamic and paternalist Milanese bourgeoisie, his strict religious schooling, a working life which has encompassed crooning, large construction projects and the creation of a commercial television empire–with careful analysis of Berlusconi's political development.
While highlighting the particular italianita of Berlusconi's trajectory, Ginsborg also finds international tendencies, such as the distorted relationship between the media system and politics. Throughout, Ginsborg suggests that Berlusconi has gotten as far as he has thanks to the wide-open space left by the strategic weaknesses of modern left-wing politics.
Paperback, 195 pages
ISBN: 9781844675418
November 2005
$17.95 / £8.99
- Purchase
Other Editions
-
Hardback, 192 pages
-
ISBN: 9781844670000
June 2004
$25.00 / £16.00
Reviews
-
Succinct and lucid ... this small book has a large agenda: to show what in contemporary Italian culture produced and promoted Berlusconi, as entrepreneur and prime minister, and what might be done to hasten his political end.
-
Carefully researched ... a notable contribution.
-
Damning ... Ginsborg shows how Berlusconi's combination of anti-political populism and media power makes him a real threat to democracy.
-
Ginsborg’s sober, thoughtful book will be of value not only to anyone interested in Italy but to anyone interested in how populist politics, money, and control of the mass media’s reservoir of fantasy can combine to override the democratic process.
-
A succinct and lucid account.
-
Penetrating and disquieting ... A masterly study by the leading British historian of contemporary Italy.
-
A compelling hatchet job ... Admirable precision and succinctness.
Blog
Another Road For Europe: a draft appeal from the Florence Forum
Activists, authors, trade-unionists and students from across Europe have launched a call for a reconfiguration of European social policy in order to reclaim the true democratic meaning of the European project:
Now, in the midst of the crisis of finance, markets and bureaucracies, we must commence to practice an egalitarian, peaceful, green and democratic Europe. We must reclaim the dignity of Europeans and our fellow world citizens.
Wu Ming on student protests in Italy: "Without a new story every battle is lost"
This week has seen student demonstrations and occupations across Italy as well as more in the UK. Amongst the students protesting Berlusconi's proposed education reforms, some of the most colourful took the form of the 'Book Bloc,' a group using painted shields representing works of literature against police in Rome.
Q, the first novel (written under the nom de plume Luther Blissett) by Wu Ming, the authors of Manituana, was, much to their satisfaction, on the frontline:
This afternoon, in Rome, students confronted the cops while carrying shields with book titles on them. The meaning was: it is culture itself that's resisting the cuts; books themselves are fighting the police. It was in this incendiary midst that our novel Q showed up, and in good company to boot: Moby Dick, Don Quixote, Plato's The Republic, A Thousand Plateaux ... It goes without saying that, whatever will happen, we're proud of what our novel is doing in the streets. Omnia sunt communia!
