journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen 137Regionale Ligure of the European Federalist Movement. Starting with the nineteenthcentury origins of Ligurian Federalism, it goes on to analyse the contribution of the regionto the construction of the Community, both in its governmental and non-governmentalaspects, extending the investigation to some sectors which have hitherto been neglected byhistoriography, such as the attitude of the local economic administrations and organisations.Since the first half of the nineteenth century Genoa and the Ligurian territory have playedan important role in the spread of Europeanism. A city of traffic and commerce, a crossroadsof men and ideas, Genoa could not long remain untouched by that national and internationalturmoil which Europe had been plunged into from the early years of the nineteenth century,and which in a short time was to result in an arrangement of the civil world according to theprinciple of nations, as stated by Daniela Preda in her lengthy and well documentedintroduction to this volume.The first essay is by Bianca Montale and is dedicated to a concept or idea of Europeproposed by a famous Genoese from the nineteenth century, Giuseppe Mazzini, who, ratherthan being a Federalist, could better be described as being a forerunner of Federalism.Although there are constant references to European cultural unity in his writings, Mazzini,does not actually mention Federalism, but rather Friendship, identifying Italy’s mission asthat of promoting the moral unity of Europe. His Europeanism shuns the juridical ties infavour of a supranational character, worried that the former could damage the absoluteindependence and sovereignty of the newly-formed nations. Notwithstanding this, his ideasare still relevant today, claims Montale, when he makes precise references to the necessity ofa close interdependence between political unification and economic integration.Danilo Veneruso, in his essay entitled “Giuseppe Garibaldi, le nazionalità, la dimensioneeuropea e l’internazionalismo”, studies the often forgotten internationalistic aspects of anotherfamous Genoan, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Veneruso, in fact, shows how in the figure of Garibaldi thenational and international aspects which characterised the popular liberation movement of themid-nineteenth century were strictly connected, and resulted in a sort of structure ofever-widening concentric circles which were to culminate in “the reform of society”.In the period between the two world wars Genoa had an active role in the attempt tocreate a new international order based on Wilsonian principles. In particular the city playedhost to one of the three so-called “Great Diplomatic Conferences” of 1922: the EconomicConference, which is dealt with in this volume by Adele Maiello, tried, along with those ofCannes and The Hague, to overcome and remediate the deep fractures of the systemresulting from the Treaty of Versailles. If, on the one hand, the conference proved to be atotal failure, it was on the other, as Adele Maiello claims, the occasion when an importantand innovative experiment in international co-habitation was carried out, in the convictionthat the crises of those years could be resolved using politico-diplomatic “weapons”,adopting a system of agreements among the great powers.It is precisely in that inter-war period, when it seemed evident that the power of Europeas the political and economic centre of the world was on the wane, that Europeanismabandons many of those utopian ideals and attitudes which had up to now formed part of itscharacter, in order to prepare itself as a political solution to the crisis of the continent.During that period Genoa, in particular, welcomed several important figures who wouldprove to be profoundly significant for the hamiltonian federalist form of Europeanism inItaly, which would now be distinguished by its more general attitude in favour of the unityof the continent in order to propose precise institutional solutions and clear cultural andtheoretic models of reference. Pietro Graglia in his interesting essay “L’europeismo aGenova nel periodo tra le due guerre” draws attention to the early writings of Luigi Einaudi,to those of his collaborator Attilio Cabiati and of Giovanni Agnelli, and also to the birth ofthe journal “Pietre” which would count, amongst others, Eugenio Colorni, futurecompanion-in-exile of Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi at Ventotene, as its collaborators.