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Memoria e Ricerca

Infrastructures and Traffic in the Port of Naples: 1860 - 1960

di Paolo Frascani
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 11 (2002), p. 41

N. S. 1 (1998) Patrizia Dogliani National identity and land: natural parks and historical parks in Europe and in United States In her introduction to the special issue, Dogliani shows the exchange of models and ideas in preserving natural and historical areas both in United States and in Europe during the last century. After a long description of the history which made possible the establishment of a National Park Service in usa, she describes the late coming of european countries, including Italy, to a political, cultural and economic attitude in preserving the natural heritage. The last due parts focus on the description of the making of state and regional parks’ networks in Italy since the 1920s (within the parenthesis of fascist period) and on a special case: the transformation of land and wood in Emilia-Romagna region because of wars and industrialization during the twentieth century. Mary E. Daly Nature and Nationalism in modern Ireland The combined impact of an economic outlook that viewed the rural landscape in terms of its potential to provide employment and a cultural nationalism that was based primarily on language and history, resulted in the absence of a political demand for the creation of national parks or the protection of rural environment in Irish State. Irish natural heritage did not feature prominently in the cultural nationalism that developed during the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. Unlike the United States, irish nationalism made little reference to nature, other than to reiterate that the country’s manifest destiny lay in remaining as a rural, agrarian society, in direct contrast to an urban industrial Britain. Since the Great Famine in 1845, land and nature were also viewed primarily in terms of their capacity to support an increased population. The irish State established only one national park before the 1970s, which was donated to the State. Only in recent years, the possible conflicts between national parks and economic development have come to the fore. This change can be seen as evidence of Ireland’s transformation from a predominantly rural society to a more urbanised society and from an impoverished economy to a country that can afford to devote resources to protecting the natural heritage. Oscar Gaspari Wood as "necessary evil": trees and man in the italian mountain The relationship between man and woods is the overpopulated italian mountains during the early years of the twentieth century is a very difficult one: trees are necessary for the environmental balance, but man needs also growing fields and cattle pastures. The italian state policy of intervention in favour of woods causes protests among the mountains population and a few studious and politicians underline the importance of finding a balance between man and woods requires. That perspective of balance is given up during the fascism when hydroelectric industry, interested in the protection of mountain dams from the land erosion, backs the supporters of afforestation as the only outlook for the mountain development, in line with the increasing influence of tourist trade. The evolution of the relationship between man and woods in Italy has many interesting points in common with the development of the forestal policy in France. Costantino Felice From deforestation to "Green region of Europe": the Abruzzi-Molise mountain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries The Abruzzi-Molise mountains include the most imposing and evocative Apennine complexes. This essay analyses the economic, social and cultural logics behind the man-environment relationship in this particular context. After centuries of uninformed "assaults on nature", whose most macroscopic forms consisted of deforestation, the great change came with the establishment of the Abruzzi National Park and the civil struggles – led by Erminio Sipari – which brought this event about during the early decades of our century. Environmentalist movements and culture have taken on a new lease of life, especially since the 60’s. Hard and impervious nature, for so long a scene of misery and abandonment, has been transformed into a formidable resource for the economic and social rebirth of the Apennine interior. The positive experience of the Abruzzi National Park, a model of the synthesis between conservation and development, has given the impetus for a whole series of similar initiatives to the extent of making the Abruzzi the "green region of Europe". Diego Leoni Fragments from a geographical-naturalistic discussion about the Great War: the Trentino case The first world war is analysed here through the changes imposed by the war itself on the territory on which it was fought. The research takes its impulse from the "Trentino Case", an Alpine region disputed by Italy and Austria in which the armed conflict took place as the extension of a scientific and mountaineering challenge that the Italian and Austrian middle classes had been involved in for some years. The mountain war fought in this limited Alpine territory had characteristics different from the war fought on other fronts, also due to its long and short term effects on the organisation of the area in question. These are analysed here from very different points of view and with disciplinary instruments which are not usually employed in the study of the phenomenon of war. Sandra Carli Ballola The Po Delta Regional Park between history and environment conservation The Po Delta Regional Park was established in 1998 and has been operational since 1995. It is an area where land and water interweave, a place of ecological interest for its flora and fauna, an "artificial" environment created by rational organisation of the waterways. Unlike other Italian parks, the Po Delta Park features a highly anthropic situation with a multiplicity of productive organisations. So a number of environmentalist proposals have been advanced for its safeguarding. Comacchio is the historical barycentre of the delta and the Park both for its special environmental and town-planning physiognomy and for the importance of its monuments. The town, which until a hundred years ago was an island surrounded by the waters of the "valle", today remains an unusual place whose beauty and uniqueness have fascinated and entranced generations of writers and film directors. Lorenzo Pazzi The National Park of Falterona Mount, Campigna and Casentino forests Nowadays, it happens more frequently that actions of environment politics are established for the safeguarding of areas of different kind (national parks, regional parks, ecc.). That is usually the right occasion to discuss and reflect on the questions which concern the relationship between the population involved and the resources of the territory. An historical analysis of this relationship give us the instruments to better understand the process in action. The national park of Falterona Mount, Campigna and Casentino forests consisted of a limited territory that, through the centuries, has been exploited in many different ways: to start from the speculative way employed by the Opera del Duomo di Firenze, to the enlightened action of the Camaldoli monks community, to the sylviculture, rationally applied by the Lorena thanks to the work of his bohemian forestal attendant, Karl Siemon, and finally, to the exploitation done by the local population for his own subsistence. In the same time in which the anthropic pressure on the forests lowered (because of the phenomenon of depopulation) the first instances for the protection of the environment were advanced; then, in two different but close moments, these proposals were finally realized, so that the territory in question was established as a National Park (1993). In the appendix, the interview to Fabio Clauser, managing director of the domain of the Casentino forests from 1950 to 1970. N. S. 2 (1998) Marco Fincardi Histories of differences and commonplaces Introducing this fascicle on the historical elaboration of ideas and stereotypes which contribute to define a region, we opted to present a studies review on this subject, trying to underline the concept of invented traditions. The building of the idea of region is proposed as a course both parallel and complementary to the several nation building processes in the last two centuries, particularly during this present crisis period – as far as the collective aggregations are concerned – a period in which, however, the cultural identities continue to be considered as a vehicle to carry on social strategies in order to get in to symbolic and material resources. Laurence Cole Monuments and Historical Memory: the Andreas Hofer Cult in Tirol The article analyses the cult that grew up around Andreas Hofer, the local national hero, amongst the German-speaking population of the Austrian province of Tirol in the 19th century. The leader of an uprising against the Bavarians and French in 1809, Hofer’s emergence as national hero involved a rehabilitation from rebel to patriotic martyr, a transfer from the liberal to the conservative political space, and the metamorphosis of an historical individual into a symbolic political programme. By analysing the most important monuments erected to Hofer in the late 19th century, it is possible to show how the creation of hero-cults are a product of the socio-cultural and political competition that takes place between different social groups in order to define a hegemonic interpretation of national identity. Maurizio Bertolotti End of the fraternity. The twofold memory of a festival 1848. At Castellaro, a village near Mantua, Basilio Cremonesi, landowner, tenant farmer and patriot, starts a political fight against the pro-Austrian mayor. Cremonesi, a democrat, tries to win the peasants’s support by offering them a banquet on Ash Wednesday. After Italy’s unification, the members of the democratic party at Castellaro set up a new festival, allegedly related to Cremonesi’s exploits. But the transformations the festival underwent in the 70’s and 80’s show that the event’s memory transmitted to the village comunity had a twofold implication. According to the moderates, the festival implied a message of social progress based on class harmony; according to the radicals, in the long run the festival legitimized peasants’ unrest and even rebellion. Jean François Chanet Emigration, belongings and regional action in the Haute Auvergne during the Nineteenth century The Félibrige, formed in 1854 to "keep Provence’s language and tradition alive" has developed late, since 1894, in Cantal, southern region of Auvergne but northern boundary of the provençal French. The geographic and social features of this rural region explain this delay as well as the variety of the component parts that the félibres had to synthetize. Torn between the protection of local patois and country traditions, the adoption of Mistral’s linguistic and literary model and the sociocultural influence of the cantalian emigrés in Spain, and particularly in Paris, the cantalian félibres linked together their own regionalistic sentiment and aspirations and the general stream of the french nationalistic revival. Stefano Cavazza Regionalism in a political transition: "La Piê" and the cultural identity of Romagna The author analyses the regionalism of Romagna starting from the idea of a cultural construction of regional and local identity. The foundation of such an identity, despite the historical background of each cultural element, is quite recent and began during the 19th century. The author points out the transformation of the regional stereotype of the Romagna-inhabitant, seen as a violent man, into a new one full of positive aspects. The building of the regional identity is the consequence of the activity of the intellectuals that edited regional periodicals and the First world war can be seen as the turning point not only for the abandoning of the negative stereotype, but also for the construction of a regional identity which didn’t refuse the idea of nation, but stressed its links to the "grande patria". The author analyses the special role played by Aldo Spallicci and by his group of enthusiasts of the popular and regional culture. Spallicci edited a journal "La Piê" which tried to revitalise the regional tradition of Romagna. The essay examines also the relation between the journal and the fascism. The fascists turned regional culture for their own purposes, refusing to it any form of political authonomy. The increasing conflict with the regime, that reached his peak with the forbidding of "La Piê", cannot be explained, according to the author, only as depending on the antiregionalistic approach of the regime, that started in the Thirtees, but much more as a consequence of the hostility of local fascists against Spallicci and his group. David Bidussa The closed society. Vichy and the political employ of the regionalist myth Regionalism in France has often been employed as a democratic ideological resource capable of hindering – or limiting – the centralizing and authoritarian effects of state centralism. The political experience of Vichy shows a different course of the regionalist myth and of the political and cultural space of the region: that of representing, beside a mythicized retrieval of ruralism, the essential ring for the definition of an authoritarian social project built on a scheme which does away with the idea of conflict and is based on a corporative dimension of society. Massimo Baioni Fascism and ruralist ideology: the festa dell’uva in Romagna and its images Among the popular initiatives promoted by the fascist regime, in the 1930s, the feast of grapes occupies a central position. Around this feast there came to rotate and intersect commercial promotion, rural ideology and mass mobilitation. In the home region of the Duce, Romagna, the feast of grapes spread everywhere, in every corner, village and town. Its popularity and longevity is confirmed by the fact that after the war (from the allegorical trucks to the coroses singing in local dialects) it was absort in the new "party feast", such as the pci "festa dell’Unità". N. S. 3 (1999) Serge Noiret History and Internet: historical research at the beginning of the third millennium This introduction to the special issue Languages and Spaces: the History Online has been conceived as a pragmatic approach to the topic. Dealing with history on Internet, today involves facing new languages, new professional practices and new communication procedures, which, at the beginning of the third millennium, should not be ignored anymore. Nevertheless, Italy still suffers from being underdeveloped in its Internet infrastructures. In this country the www is underestimated by the academic and istitutional set, and this essay tries to focus on how Internet could be used by historians. In order to understand the changes and to exploit the new virtual resources, three basic questions should be answered before entering the www. First, we should understand "what" may be found and what is not yet available on Internet. Answering this question requires a certain knowledge of Web developments and contents. How to find what one is looking for on Internet, is the second question. How an historian could best exploit the resources found on the net, is the last one. Answering these basic demands is the main object of this introductory paper. Michelangelo Vasta Internet and public policies: the patterns of development in Italy This essay focuses on pattern of development of Internet in Italy. For this purpose the author analyses the results obtained by different models of public policies: a first one, based on wide autonomy and introduced at local level, and a second one promoted at central level. The analysis deals with two different case studies regarding respectively reti civiche – Italian web pages promoted by local institutions – and a new system of evaluation for academic research projects. The main finding shows how in latecomer country such as Italy there are better possibilities to get good results in the diffusion of new technologies through the activity of a central institution. Peppino Ortoleva The Net and the Chain. Historians in the Internet times As the so called constructionist historians of science and technology have demonstrated, technical change is mediated by the "relevant social groups" that negotiate it, its pace and its effects. Thinking historians, and humanities scholars in general, as one of the relevant social groups in the advent of the Internet is not obvious. But if we think in these terms we may find some interesting phenomena: the convergence of amateurism and professionalism in the web culture; the tendency to substitute essays with data banks as privileged scientific output; the articulation of the global with the extremely localized and specialized are all fruits of a negotiation that has deeply involved the scientific communities, among the historians as among "hard" scientists. Luca Toschi Orchestrating texts. Multimedia beyond the digital dimension There is a great confusion concerning words as "multimedia", "hypertext", "hypermedia", "relational database management system", Web sites etc. The author gives a contribution to the definition of digital text. Multimedia is a new and, at the same time, a deeply-rooted language; however, it presumes a certain difficulty not only in being properly used, but even in being recognized as a linguistic system. Nowadays, our culture is ruled by the myth of an ubiquitous and omnivorous memory, based on the incredible and "unpublished" power of the digital support. It is the result of a commercial planetary trend, which, however, is progressively denying the linguistic and political nature of this new language, in other words, of our future memory. Renato Giannetti The electronic publishing and the academic recruitment The electronic publishing is changing a lot the scenario of actors on the stage of publishing: authors, publishing companies, libraries etc. This change could involve also the academia in a couple of ways. Firstly, and more obviously, electronic publishing is strongly enlarging the ability to publish; secondly, and less obviously, it could also change the way by which academia will screen and recruit its crew. This paper deals with the second point. In the first paragraph we depict some general views on "publishing and storing" which can result from the diffusion of electronic publishing; in the second one, we shortly summarise the dramatic reduction of costs of publishing because of electronics; and finally we sketch how academic selection could be changed by a network diffusion of academic research. Franco Andreucci The experience of H-Net The author discusses the experience of H-Net, the most important network of mailing lists in the field of historical culture. Created in 1992 by Richard Jensen and originally based on three lists and a few hundred subscribers, H-Net has now more than 80.000 subscribers in 90 countries. The lists are almost 100, dealing with themes like German and Urban history, France, Women, Labour, Holocaust, Political studies, Italian history and culture, Anthropology etc. Regarding the cultural profile of the organization, H-Net has moved from the area of historical studies to that of the humanities and social sciences, and from a network of mailing lists to a stabile institution with a rich and useful www site. George M. Welling The International Association for History and Computing on the Internet: a Dutch perspective The International Association for History and Computing was founded before the great Internet hype, but – being an association of computer using historians – needed a presence on the World Wide Web quite early. This started with a very unfrequently used ListServer, run from Goettingen (Germany), later as part of the H-Net listservers. In 1993 the Web-pages of the ahc were started from a server at Groningen University (Netherlands). Groningen was chosen because of the fact that here the expertise was available gathered from other web-projects. Since 1993 the ahc-webserver has attracted more than 100.000 visitors. Debra L. Morner, Robert Whaples, Samuel H. Williamson Economic History Online Started in 1993 with a gopher server and the first list in the field of economic history, Econhist, today EH.Net operates The Economic History Services Web site and hosts nine public scholarly lists, with more than 3,500 total subscribers. This article describes the development and evolution of these lists and web site resources. EH.Net is a chartered organization owned and directed by its sponsoring member associations: the Business History Conference, The Cliometric Society, the Economic History Association, and the History of Economics Society. Its objective is to provide a central source of information for scholars world-wide in the fields of economic and business history and the history of economics. Oscar Struijvé The History Data Service: using Internet technologies to provide access to historical resource collections This article introduces the activities of the History Data Service, the British national facility for preservation and dissemination of digital historical resources, integrated in the Data Archive at the University of Essex and part of the Arts and Humanities Data Service. It provides an overview of its principles and strategies to exploit information and communication technologies in order to disseminate information and to provide access to resources and documentation. Two case studies are incorporated, highlighting area’s of implementation where the Internet plays a key role. The first one deals with metadata and cataloguing developments, the second with online query and delivery facilities for special historical data collections. The article concludes with an attempt to generalise some of the issues involved, and sketches what can be expected over the next few years. Lynn H. Nelson Before the Web: the early development of history on line Before the release of the Mosaic browser in August of 1993, historians had already been working on the Internet for several years to create facilities and assemble materials for the use of historians generally. Although people were fascinated by the wealth of materials available when the World Wide Web was opened, few asked who had prepared these materials and so the work of these men and women is in danger of being forgotten. This articles traces the accomplishments of a group of these pioneers from their gathering on HISTORY@FINHUTC, the first Internet discussion list for historians, through their development of a world-wide network of History-oriented information servers, to the close of 1993 and points out the contributions they have continued to make since that time. In an addendum requested by the editor, the author recounts some of his own experiences during this period of growth. Citations are given to documents made available on the Internet and Web. Inaki Lopez Martin Internet and Spanish History between the present and the latest projects The current article has been organised around the possibilities offered by the World Wide Web for the study of the History of Spain at the present time. During the last four years the amount of pages containing hypertext information of historical interest such as resources collections, discussion lists, and electronic journals has grown greatly. These electronic tools have become already part of the daily life of thousands of specialists interested on Spanish History. Unfortunately, other aspects in particular electronic teaching, and large on line multimedia projects are still rare. These lines suggest an overall analysis of the present situation, with particular reference to some of the latest projects developed in the field of Spanish History. Marc J. Willem European Union on the Internet: reliable information source for historians? Firstly, we discuss if, generally speaking, we can trust the information sources available on the Internet. In fact, the historian has to evaluate the reliability of the source by using the same criteria as the journalist and the documentalist when they search for information. Secondly, we analyse the information provided by the European Union institutions on the Internet, taking into account the potential interests of modern historians. We try to answer the following questions: what is the dissemination policy of the European Union on the Internet? What information services and sources are available? What is the European Union’s position regarding information policy(ies) and research and development, both of which can influence the work of the modern historian? N. S. 4 (1999) Ignacio Chato Gonzalo Masonry and national identity in Portugal in the second half of the XIXth Century The birth and development of nationalistic movements in the xixth Century caused conflicts and discrepancies within masonic societies. The fact is that freemasons, loyal to the principle of Universal Brotherhood, believed in internationalism, and this was enough to induce the public opinion in several countries to suspect their societies of antipatriotic feelings. This problem was specially dramatic in Portugal in the second half of the century, when the United Lusitanian Grand Orient, of which some Spanish lodges were also members, was charged with being a tool of Spain and forsaking Portuguese nationalism for the sake of an Iberian ideal, i.e. Spanish hegemony in the Peninsula. To counter these charges Portuguese masonry emphasized its nationalistic spirit, and this put an end to any dispute about this question for the following decades. Luis P. Martin Spanish freemasonry in the early XXth Century: political cultures and identities The political commitment of Spanish masonry, already clear in the late xixth Century, grew particularly strong in the early xxth Century, when most masonic groups took sides with the republican parties. This essay examines the ideal bases of freemasons’ loyalty to the republican doctrine and the influence of European political cultures, among which that of the French democratic left wing during the Third Republic was particularly important. More in detail, it deals with the impact of secularization on Spanish society in the early xxth Century, and with anti-clericalism and its role as chief common constituent of all Latin masonic groups and informing force of their commitment in civil society and in the political contest. Pere Sánchez Ferré From the Catalonian-Balearic Grand Lodge to the Spanish Grand Lodge: an example of political vocation of the Catalonian Masonry (1886-1930) This essay deals with the history of the chief masonic group in Catalonia in the period of the Spanish Restoration and the dictatorial government of Primo de Rivera (1886-1930). The Catalonian-Balearic Grand Lodge was inspired by a very strong political commitment: it had been founded by men devoted to the ideal of a federal republic, met with favour in leftist circles particularly, and grew to be one of the pillars of the Spanish anti-clerical movement. Most of its members were tradesmen, professionals and office workers; in its early stage the lodge supported Catalonian nationalism. In 1921 it turned into the Spanish Grand Lodge and became gradually active on a national scale, in favour of a federal system, both in political life and the organization of masonic societies. Marco Novarino Fraternal association v. politics. Masonry in Turin and Piedmont from 1860 to 1925 In the decade 1860-70 the Turin and Piedmont societies had a national role. After the Italian Grand Orient moved to Rome they intensified their activity in their original areas: they extended their presence in civil society and promoted the advancement of a strongly secular associative spirit. Early in the xxth Century they became gradually sympathetic with the views of the democratic and socialist left, and their political role grew stronger again. This led to a considerable increase in the number of lodges and members, but also to harsh conflicts between their progressive and moderate wings, the latter being more strictly affected to the Anglo-Saxon masonic model, in opposition to a strong political commitment. Daniela Luisa Caglioti Masonry and politics in Naples (1860-1914) After 1860 some 60 to 70 lodges were active in Naples, loyal to the various rites present in Italy at the time. This essay examines their history, particularly with regard to the analogies and differences between them and other select societies. A database is available concerning 4,723 masons belonging to the Naples lodges of the Italian Grand Orient in the period 1880-1925; it is evidence of the basically bourgeois or petty-bourgeois character of these lodges and of their effective action toward promoting friendly relations with lower social groups in Naples. The emphasis is, therefore, on the role of Neapolitan masonry in public life in general, particularly in political controversy and elections. Fulvio Conti Brothers, honorourable men and clients. Masonry and politics in Calabria in the period of the liberal government From 1860 to the fascist rise to power Calabria was one of the Italian regions with the highest number of masonic lodges. They were prominent in the political life in the region and many of their members achieved important positions in parliament or in local governments. Masonry played an ambiguous role: on the one hand it helped create mutual aid and credit associations, so contributing to the advancement of modern and democratic ideas in the social and political contest of that time; on the other hand it was moved by an obscure tendency to mediation and interchange, regardless of any ideal principle and mainly concerned with controlling local power through a patron-client system. The essay examines these aspects and adds a detailed picture of the lodges acting in the region and the social and professional background of their members. Ferdinando Cordova Short notes about italian masonry in the second post-war period. Italian masonry, interdicted by the fascist regime in 1925, resumed its activity in 1943, when Mussolini fell and allied forces invaded Southern Italy. The early stage went through a state of general disorder, as witnessed by the rise of a number of self-governing groups; soon, however, two organizations became predominant, led by Palazzo Giustiniani and Piazza del Gesù respectively. The former supported a republican form of government; its position was definitely in favour of democratic progress and its action aimed at cooperation and agreement with the centre-left parties, with a view to possible agreements with the communist party as well. The latter was monarchical and anti-communist, sided with the centre-right parties and kept up friendly relations with Democrazia cristiana and the catholic circles. The essay introduces us into these events on the basis of unpublished documents of the National Archive, Washington, and Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome. N. S. 5 (2000) Daniel R. Headrick Telecommunications and Power This work draws an outline of the history of global telecommunications from the first experiments up to the present developments. The guiding thread is here represented by the concept of power: remote communications have always worked like a source of power, both economic and politic. Controlling the “net”, in terms of an historical prospect, gives access to the core of global communications. Formerly the optic telegraph, then the electric telegraph became the new frontier of technology. However, the most astonishing innovation was represented by submarine cables, followed by the introduction of Marconi equipments during the last decades of the XIX century. Widely exploited during the two World Wars, telecommunications have gained an astounding expansion during the last few years. The growth of networks, along with the introduction of satellites and, lately, optic fibres all represent the most up to date accomplishments in communications technology. Donard de Cogan, Trevor Baldwin The Growth of International Telegraphy between 1866-1900 Great Britain widely dominated international telegraphy. This essay follows the events of many different telegraph companies, reporting the various “cut-throat competitions” that took place between them. In particular this work dwells upon the events concerning the Anglo-American Telegraph Co., one of the telecommunication leaders. The most important successes in submarine telegraphy were< “made in Britain”: the first trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866 between Valentia Island, Ireland, and Hearts Content, Terranova, Canada. The new communication systems radically changed the world of business and finance besides transforming newspapers’ conventions and packaging. As a whole, among public services, the submarine cable business- leaving alone the railways business- was one of most important during the XIX century. Melcior Arcarons Spain and Trans-Atlantic Telegraphy: 1858-98 Favoured by its geographic position, from the very beginning Spain took part in the international competition for the control of submarine telegraphy. Starting from the second half of the 1850’s, the efforts to lay a trans-Atlantic cable multiplied. The first project was put forward by Horatio J. Perry, Secretary of Embassy and Responsible for the American affairs in Madrid. At first, Perry took into account the possibility of laying a cable connecting Cuba, then a Spanish settlement, and the US with which Spain was in bad terms. Meanwhile, many projects for a south-Atlantic link followed one another, but none of them met with the longed for success. More successful were the projects put forward at the beginning of the 1870’s, aimed at connecting Spain with the rest of Europe. By that time a Portoguese-Brazilian link was inaugurated as well. Alexandre Kostov The Growth of Telecommunication in the Balkans before 1914 From the very beginning, the growth of telecommunication in the Balkans was marked by strong attempts at establishing international links, both towards Western Europe and towards the Near and the Far East. The introduction of the new communication system in the Balkans occurred just when the Crimean War broke out thanks to the financial and technological intervention of the Western Europe countries: so, one might well infer that military motivations were at the basis of the growth of telegraph networks in the Balkans. From a chronological point of view, the gap between the Balkans and Western Europe was not a significant one. This work reconstructs the laying of inland and submarine telegraph networks in the Balkans by stepping over the wars and the changes in national borders that took place as far as the first experiments in radiotelegraphy were made before WWI. Lars U. Scholl The Impact of Telecommunication on Global Shipping before 1914 The influence the telegraph had on trades needs to be attentively analysed. The possibility of broadcasting up to date price-lists and other business information enormously conditioned the sea trades. Once the effective exploitation of radio communication was achieved, both the mercantile marine and the navy benefited by it, allowing the shipping companies to keep in touch with their own ships on the high seas and facilitating port manoeuvres. Once the Marconi, the Telefunken and other companies were able to merchandise radiotelegraphy their objectives and main beneficiaries were shipping companies, port authorities, shipping agents and insurance companies. Advantages were gained both in the economical sphere and in the improvement of safety as well. Pascal Griset Between Monopoly and Free Market. The History of French Telephony The history of French telephony deals with two opposite government-controlled options: monopoly and free market. Established in 1837, for a century and a half monopoly represented the datum legislative cadre. This essay follows its stages, underlining the governative approaches towards private companies and focusing on the establishments of the first manufacturing industries which supplied the equipments. For a long time, the lack of investments in national telephony restrained its same development. Only with a great delay the involvement of the nation in relation to research, combined with a decisive financial contribution, allowed the French industry to recover and to gain an important share in the international market. During the 1970’s and 1980’s French telecommunications knew an unparalleled evolution and in a few years France closed the former gap. Peppino Ortoleva Technological Networks and Telecommunications. An Italian model? Presently, the most investigated matters concerning the history of telecommunications are: the prominence of the political dimension; the relevance of technical standards and their long-term capacity of binding the following choices and the existence of the different subjects involved in decision-making and in negotiations, that is – besides the political power and the management – the manufacturing industries that might be active in a given place, the other wide-range networks and the operators themselves. Italian telecommunications, subject of the present essay, appear to be an integrating factor for the country and a premise to a new gradual balance. On the other hand, it’s more difficult to allot the Italian telecommunications a precise identity in terms of modernity/backwardness, their history being one of ups and downs, of privatist solutions along with publicist ones. N. S. 6 (2000) Maria Grazia Melchionni Italian People and European Choice Italian people's europanism is partly rooted in their mistrust toward national institutions, and the Author inquires about contemporary historical reasons of that.Anyhow the phenomenon has been, in Italy as elsewhere till the European Parliament elections, a rather elitist one, and even now European propensity seems to be diffused mostly between people belonging to moderate and central areas. The essay analizes characters and evolution, during the last fifty years, of Italian contribution to the integration process, relating it to other political problems settled throughout. Francesco Gui European Society, Culture and Mass-media. The eec Commissioner Altiero Spinelli's Memorandum (december 1972) In late November 1972, the then eec commissioner Altiero Spinelli submitted a long document to his colleagues for approval. Better, the documents were two, strictly connected. The first bore the title Bilan et perspectives: activité du Groupe "Enseignement et Education" (Communication de M. Spinelli) and was a description of what Spinelli and his staff had done in the field of education. In short, bymeans of the concise "Communication", the Commissioner informed the eec executive body about his initiatives brought about by a group of four high ranking functionaries, led by Spinelli himself, who had the task to pave the first steps of a Community education policy. Among the accomplishments of the "Groupe", maybe the most relevant of all, there was precisely the second document, namely the "Memorandum de la Commission au Conseil des Communautés européennes. Pour une action communautaire dans le domaine de la culture (projet présenté par M. Spinelli)", that had been attached to the "Communication", owing to its value. Both texts were put on the agenda of the Commission (and approved) on the 6th of December, so that they could be sent to the Council for final adoption. Actually, Spinelly was perfectly aware that the Community was on the eve of its first enlargement, the one to England, Ireland and Denmark, that was going to start at the beginning of next January. In fact, as he wrote on his "Diario Europeo", his purpose was to launch new ideas for the new phase of European life, and the memorandum was one of them. From this point of view, although neither the words of eec treaties nor the will of governments allowed the formal setup a common cultural policy, a possible Community initiative on culture was deemed to enhance the sense of unity among the citizens of the Nine and to strenghten their loyalty to their common institutions. Piero S. Graglia The Question of European Integration in Italian Press: 1945-1954 Owing the new international scenery, the question of integration of European countries became a prevalent topic during the years 1945-54, both on the Press and in the general cultural debates of the time. The us was bound to invent a new European policy in order to make up for the role of Great Britain, by now strongly worndown. On the periodicals of that time a question urgently stood out: Europe: what to do? The "big" Press, headed by "Il Corriere della Sera", gave a strong support to the issue of European integration and American initiative, while the socialist and communist Press regarded such politics as a way to reinforce American imperialism. As a consequence, the aim to inform "the average Italian reader" was on the agenda in the first ten years after world war II. Pierre Musso Mass-media and the Cultural Identities of European Regions Mass-media are promoting a new idea of Europe, the so-called "Regional Europe". On one hand, the new technologic processes are leading to the globalization of Economics and of mass-communication systems and, on the other, to a growing application for information that, in its turn, arouses the regionalization of the media and their differentiation. The mingling of global and local aspects contributes to the constitution of international networks in which regions stand out as a limited and, consequently, more knowable space. Mass-media, including both Press and Television, do not create ex novo: they take part to the creation and representation of the cultural identities of European regions. In this way Europe is able to find in the media the heritage of its own history and, at the same time, its own weakness. Nina Rothenberg Europhobia and Euroscepticism in British Press: "The Sun" and "The Times" The headline "Up yours Delors" in "The Sun" on I November 1990 on the background of the controversy surrounding the euro marked one of the heights of anti-European propaganda in Britain.The aim of this essay is to assess the way Europe is portrayed in "The Sun" and "The Times", as the main popular and quality papers respectively, and to identify the political and cultural reasons for their anti-European stance. I will analyse the role of the British media as the moulder of public opinion and the most important link between the political system, the media and the public. The terms "Euroscepticism" and "Europhobia" should help categorise two different kinds of anti-European sentiment. While "Euroscepticism" means doubt about the usefulness, truth and practicability of the European Union and its institutions, "Europhobia" can be defined as a feeling of irrational fear of supranational integration, which lacks logical contemplation. It will be suggested that the latter plays a significant role in forming or perpetuating the prejudices that then place constraints on political action. N. S. 7 (2001) Fabrizio Rasera and Camillo Zadra Conflict of Memories: the Great War at the Museum of Rovereto This article reconstructs the history of the Italian war history museum in Rovereto between 1919 and the second world conflict, highlighting the precocity of the initiative and the fact that it was the work of a group of citizens who aimed at giving the museum a national and international profile. The museum did not simply celebrate the Italian victory, but also the Italian-ness of the "redeemed lands" via the exhibition of relics from the times of the Austrian administration as well as objects and monuments of German culture present on the territories recently annexed. Notwithstanding its perfect fitting with the extreme nationalism of the times, in the 1930s and Forties the museum was forced to defend itself from both Austro-German complains concerning its exhibits and the availability of the Italian government to give a hearing to such complains. Jean-Jacques Becker Great War Memory in France: Mourning or Museums? Reflecting upon the memory of the Great War in France between the two wars, this article shows how the constitution of historical museums was impaired by the construction of sites of memory (above all the monuments to the fallen), which absorbed the entire commemorative effort. The related histories of the Musée de la Grande Guerre and of the annexed Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine highlight the tentative and accidental path suffered by the representation of the conflict in French museums. An enduring hesitation, which has been overcome only very recently with the inauguration of the Memorial de Verdun (1967) and the Historial de la Grande Guerre de Péronne (1992). Claudio Fogu To Make History Present. Fascism and the Representation of the Great War This article offers a close reading on the image-making activities of Antonio Monti, founder of the Milanese War Archive (1924), director of the Milanese Museum of the Risorgimento, and curator of the war rooms in the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution (1932). Focusing on the fusion of actualist philosophy of history, modernist aesthetics, and Latin-Catholic rhetorical codes in the representation of the Great War, the analysis discloses a fascist "historic" imaginary built around the notion of making history visually present. Christine Beil Mobilized Memory. War Exhibitions in Interwar Germany Using exhibitions and museums in interwar Berlin as an example, the article discusses the utilization of war and the link between aesthetics and political orientation. During the Weimar Republic, the First World War was not explicitly made a topic in the State-owned Zeughaus museum. Rather, a political statement against the Versailles treaty was made by leaving in place empty pedestals where once weapons taken from the enemy as spoils of war were on display before they had to be returned. At the same time, the radical left developed the anti-war type of exhibition, in which the horrors of war were emphasized and modern formal techniques from Expressionism and Dada were used. By the end of the Weimar Republic, a heroic, nationalistic and revanchist image of the war and of soldiers began to assert itself in experiential installations with models of battlefields and tin soldiers. This image was then systematically deployed in the Nazi era in didactically elaborate exhibitions on military history intended to mentally "arm" the general public. Along the lines of "reactionary modernism", bacward-looking, anti-democratic ideas wrapped in a modern installation aesthetic were presented to the museum patrons. Jay Winter The Great War in the British Museum: an "Imperial" History Focusing on the interaction between demographic trends and cultural institutions in inter-war Britain, this article provides an original contextualization of the Imperial War Museum as a quintessentially "imperial" war memorial. The museums' emphasis on the contribution of Imperial and Dominion forces to the victory, and on all the theaters of war made it comparatively original but also uniquely untimely vis à vis the uncoupling of British and Imperial history after 1918. In particular, the article concentrates on the direct correlation between the shrinking volume of museum visitors and immigrants from the Empire in 1920s and 1930s Britain. N. S. 8 (2001) Serge Noiret The electoral campaign This project was started in 1995 with the idea to define an ideal type, a model of a possible way to study historically electoral campaigns in different eras and geographical contexts. The instruments used in electoral campaigns are also presented in relation with the Italian case to describe better how to use the model. Each three section of the model are described. The electoral practices and instruments are made of four elements: propaganda materials; the oral activity; the financial needs of the campaign and the pressures and/or corruption on voters. Campaigns are made of four, sometimes five, different activities: the making of the electors? lists, the proclamation of candidates, the political activity during the campaign, the vote and after the vote, the legal recourses against the results of the polls. Finally, four factors are influencing the campaigns: the political system and his changes; the electoral system and all the practical rules used to express the vote; the constituencies and their geography and, finally, the understanding of the political culture defining the sense of the vote itself. Michel Offerlé Electoral Transactions. Candidats and voters in the French campaign at the ninetheen century. As a "socio-historian", the author wants to insert "campaigning" procedures during the period 1848-1914 in France, inside the broadest procedures of selection of the political elite's and all the democratic mechanism conducing towards a political legitimization of the system in an elective democracy. Electors and candidates are both learning their role in an emerging democratic competition during this period. In order to analyze this process, Offerlé try first to describe the legal background of the system before analyzing how, during the period, a "political offer" towards the "electoral and the political market" is changing. Doing this, he tries to establish a typology of available electoral transactions at the end of the xixth century in France. Finally, Offerlé describes the role of the voters during an electoral campaign in order to understand what was the - by that time- perception and understanding of the significance of the vote itself for all new French citizens. Spyros Karavas The electoral campaign in Greece The author gives us some trends of the history of elections and "campaigning" in Greece from 1848 to 1996 based on a diachronic approach. He also gives an in dept presentation of the available Greek literature and historiography on the subject. He presents us the different steps and the evolution of the political and legal background of elections and electoral procedures in Greece during the period and deals with the evolution of suffrage (voting rights) and of the different electoral procedures in relation with the cultural and political background for each new electoral law. The author ends is research with a reflection on political participation and on the evolution of the participation to the polls through new legal and political rules after W.W.II. and ater the Civil War in a changing Greek democracy. Nikolaos Vafeas The electoral campaign in Greece. A first approach This paper investigates the history of electoral campaigns in the Greek national state from the time parliamentary elections were institutionalized, in 1844, to nowadays. First, it examines the different phases, the internal chronology, of what can be defined as an "electoral campaign"; then, it focuses upon the historical evolution of the institutional framework that regulates the succession of these phases. Moreover, it presents the collective actors that have played an essential role in the voting process in Greece in different periods, with special reference to their socio-economic characteristics, as well as to their specific function within the political system. Finally, it depicts the different components of Greek electoral campaigns, whether these are verbal or material. In other words, the form and the content of political discourse, as well as the material means and the canvassing rituals of Greek electoral campaigns are examined. Raymond Huard Candidates and candidatures in France (1848-1885) The author wants to analyze better the selection process of candidates during an electoral campaign or, even better, during the phase which is immediately before the "campaigning" activities from 1848 to 1885 in France. Huard thinks that this selective process is the common denominator for all the political activities and that it integrates all the element of the political system together with the development of party's organization together with the influence of the social structures. During that period, Huard try to define what was a "candidate" to the polls: anybody who was saying to be a candidate in public meetings, in newspapers and in printed documents and/or who was doing an electoral campaign ? He then examines the democratization of this selecting procedures of the candidates themselves during the period and also the important influence, the electoral system and voting procedures, have had onto the selection process. N. S. 11 (2002) The Port of Genoa: 1861- 1970 M.Elisabetta Tonizzi At the time of Unification ( 1861 ) Genoa, whose port was the largest and most modern of the Peninsula, became the maritime capital of the Italian State and still holds this leading position. In the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, when the Italian industrial take-off occurred, Genoa not only became one of most industrialised cities but also the maritime terminal of the country’s most economically advanced area, the so-called ‘industrial triangle’. This article examines, from a quantitative and qualitative standpoint, shipping, cargo and passenger traffics trends and the evolution of the port’s functional role during the period under consideration. It also attempts to outline the economic and occupational magnitude of the Genoese commercial and industrial port-related activities. Moreover, the analysis is focused on the port’s maritime infrastructures and cargo handling equipment projected and created over a century and on the difficult relationship between the port system and the urban context. Infrastructures and Traffic in the Port of Naples: 1860 - 1960 Paolo Frascani This article examines shipping and goods traffic trends and the infrastructural development of the port of Naples from 1860 , when the city became part of the Italian State, to 1960 . The Author analyses both the composition of cargo flows over that time span and the port’s functional role within the framework of the backward economic system of Southern Italy. At the end of the 19 th century, Naples became the country’s leading migration port: passenger traffic trend is thus deeply reviewed as well as the problem of expanding and modernising the harbour’s infrastructures. At the fall of the Bourbon kingdom ( 1860 ), the port of Naples presented very poor operational conditions and important works were urgently needed to meet steam shipping requirements. The upgrading of the port’s berthing structures and commercial facilities was achieved only during the time span 1925 - 1933 , within the framework of a comprehensive town planning scheme. Cause and an effect of that great delay was the weakening of the local merchant class whose economic attitudes are carefully considered by the Author.