Verona, and completed his PhD while teaching at Reading University. Before arriving at Oxford in 2003, he taught at the universities of Sussex, Kent, and Royal Holloway London. In 2012 he was appointed Ufficiale dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica by the Italian government in recognition of his contribution to Italian culture. He has collaborated with a variety of media outlets such as BBC radio and television channels, RAI radio and tv channels, and various specialist and generalist journals. His research work centres on Italy's post-Unification cultural history, with a particular interest in literature and cinema.
Bonsaver applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, America in Italian Culture: The Rise of a New Model of Modernity, 1861-1943, and reported the following:
Page 99 in this book discusses what image of the USA did migrants from Italy have before they embarked on their transatlantic trip. In most cases, they were semi-illiterate peasants hence their positive but vague image of America as a land of hope was very different from the patronising views produced in print by Italy’s elite classes. This single page does a good job in introducing the first half of the book, which deal with the image and influence of American culture during the years between Italy’s unification, in 1866, and World War One. Class differences were so marked in those times that I found it necessary to explore how different social milieus saw America in a different light. This page is also illustrative of the importance of the interaction between the arrival of American culture in Italy and the role played by millions of Italians who migrated there, most of them keeping close ties with their homeplace.Learn more about America in Italian Culture at the Oxford University Press website.
What remains out of that single page is the second half of the book which deals with the interwar years and the influence of Mussolini’s Fascist regime. During that period, migration to the USA was reduced to a trickle as a consequence of anti-immigration policies by the US government. At the same time, it is during the interwar years that the impact of American culture – from jazz music, to contemporary fiction, comics, Hollywood films and mass-production techniques – becomes dominant across all social classes and in all sectors of the culture industry. Indeed, I argue that this is the first example of the development in Italy of what we call “mass culture”. Another interesting aspect of the second half of the book is its exploration of the tension between the overwhelming presence of American culture and the nationalistic policies of the fascist regime which, particularly after 1938, attempted and failed to stem the flow.
--Marshal Zeringue
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