John Foot is a professor of modern Italian history at the University of Bristol and the author of several books, including The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945 (2018) and Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism (2022).
After 1945, Italy had strong left-wing movements and an anti-fascist consensus that stemmed from the wartime resistance. Since the 1990s, however, a corrosive “anti-political” mood has displaced anti-fascism, and the far right has been the main beneficiary.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Italy’s Serie A was the world’s leading football league. But as financial interests asset-strip once-great clubs and the terraces become home to harshening racist abuse, Italian football no longer looks like such a “beautiful game.”
Forty years ago this week, Italy began to shut down its psychiatric hospitals. The change was driven by a movement with a radical new vision of mental health.