What were the issues in the Institutional Referendum of 1946

History 301 – Prof. Lux Alternative Assignment October 31– Week 9 Name ____________________________

During Week 9 (Oct 31) we took up Chapter 6 of Valerio Lintner’s A Traveller’s History of Italy Chap 6: Risorgimento and Unification asking ourselves to create response to each of the following questions:

“Post War and Contemporary Italy”

• What were conditions like in Italy in 1945 — at the end of World War II? o Economy? o Politics? o Any help available? o Major players?

• What were the issues in the Institutional Referendum of 1946? What was the outcome?

o How did the politics balance? Who (what group) emerged in the leadership role?

o How did the economy function? • How did Italy consolidate its recovery from Fascism and World War II in the

1950s (1948-1960)? o What does Lintner mean by the “politics of accommodation”? o How much stability was there in the Italian political system? o Lintner tells us Italy received large amounts of “Marshall Aid” in the 1950s.

What was that? o Did the labor situation in this period help or hinder Italy’s economic

development? How? o How did Italy’s economic system work in this period? o What was (is) Italy’s problem of the Mezzogiorno? How was it addressed

in this period? o What was Italy’s strategy in dealing with others in the European political

and economic systems? o How did the political “left” fare in the 1950s?

• What was Italy’s “Economic Miracle” of the 1960s o How do we know it was actually a “Miracle”? o Who was Aldo Moro? o What problems did Italy face in the Moro years?

• What was the “Hot Autumn”? o Outcomes? o Who were the Red Brigades? How active were they? o What was the most well-known “action” of the Red Brigades in the 1970s? o What became of the Italian cultural scene in the 1970s and 80s? o Do you recognize any of the film directors or actors Lintner mentions?

o What about Italian popular music? Any Favorites? o What was tangentopoli in the 1990s? o What prompted a “spate of murders” in the early 1990s? o What are the Northern League parties? o What did Silvio Berlusconi represent in Italian politics? o Why did 2002 represent a real turning point in the history of Italy? o On what “note” does Lintner conclude his book? (The Prodi government

fell in 2008)

First: write a short response to each of the discussion question prompts that we took on during class. Second: construct a short timeline 5-8 items to capture the major events/turning points of the Post-War (WW II) Era and Contemporary Italy Third: Review the Project Assignment Sheet and list the Required Components for the course project assignment Fourth: Review the steps for Writing Better Reviews on the Weekly Agenda. How many steps are listed? You can word process your response and upload it through the Blackboard submission link. Blackboard will tell you it’s “no credit” or maybe “0 points.” Don’t worry about that, I’ll load all these points manually at the time of the final grading.