On Liberal Revolution Paperback / softback

Part of the Italian Literature and Thought series

Paperback / softback

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Description

This book is the first English-language edition of a collection of writings by one of Italyâ€™s most important radical liberals, Piero Gobetti (1901â€“1926).

In thirty-five thought-provoking essays, Gobetti proposes an original and challenging notion of liberalism as a revolutionary theory of both the individual and social and political movements.

His theory is of particular relevance in the wake of the collapse of Marxist socialism, as non-Western countries with nonliberal or antiliberal cultural and moral traditions confront the problems of transition toward democracy and liberalism.

Gobettiâ€™s ideas continue to influence in important ways todayâ€™s heated debates over the nature of liberalism. Gobetti was the first Italian scholar to identify â€œtwo Italysâ€: one enlightened and modern though small and weak, the other premodern, traditional, and dominant.

A witness to the seizure of power by the Fascists, Gobetti became convinced that Italyâ€™s hostility to liberalism could be overcome only with a cultural revolution.

Endorsing a radical liberalism, he nevertheless believed that the Communists, led by Antonio Gramsci, could play a crucial role in democratizing Italy by helping to develop a secular culture.

For a liberal state to subsist and grow, Gobetti argued, there must first be a transformation of both the economic structure and the legal and moral culture of the society.