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Biography of Gaetano SalveminiName: Gaetano SalveminiBirth Date: September 8, 1873 Death Date: September 6, 1957 Place of Birth: Molfetta, Italy Nationality: Italian Gender: Male Occupations: historian, journalist Gaetano Salvemini The Italian historian and journalist Gaetano Salvemini (1873-1957) introduced economic and social analysis into Italian historiography. He spent his later years combating the Fascist dictatorship.Gaetano Salvemini was born in Molfetta on Sept. 8, 1873, the second of nine children in a poor peasant family. As a child, he had little to read but the Bible and the novels of Alexander Dumas and Eugène Sue. But his success on his school examinations led him to try for a scholarship at the Institute for Higher Studies at Florence, which he barely won.In Florence he was soon caught up in the Socialist movement. His thesis on the Florentine knighthood in the Renaissance was followed by Magnati e popolani nelle commune di Firenze 1280-1295 (1899), in which he described the origins of the Florentine Republic as the product of class conflict. Salvemini saw the history of this period as one of conflict between the aristocracy …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…from an assassin's bullet, it deprived the opposition of one of its most courageous leaders.In 1925, after being arrested for clandestine anti-Fascist activities, Salvemini managed to escape and flee the country. He went first to France and England, then in 1933 to the United States to teach the history of Italian civilization at Harvard. He worked to awaken the English and American world to the dangers of fascism. He returned to Florence in 1947 and died there on Sept. 6, 1957. Further Reading Salvemini's own works, which give considerable insight into his character, include The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy (1927) and, in collaboration with George LaPiana, What To Do with Italy (1943). Also of interest is his Under the Axe of Fascism (1936). For background see Charles F. Delzell, Mussolini's Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance (1961). Drawing from a vast array of primary sources, Charles Killinger's Gaetano Salvemini: A Biography is a valuable and insightful portrait of Salvemini. |