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Introduction
Three names stand out significantly in the historiography of Fascism and anti Fascism in America: Gaetano Salvemini, John Patrick Diggins, and Alexander DeConde.
Gaetano Salvemini published Fascist Dictatorship in Italy (1927) and Mussolini Diplomate (1932). (Italian editions of the latter appeared in 1945 and 1952 under the title Mussolini Diplomatico). Under the Axe of Fascism followed in 1936. Fascist Activities in the United States, a 1940 pamphlet, became What to Do with Italy, written with Giorgio La Piana and published in 1943. The Center for Immigration Studies published Italian Fascist Activities in the United States (1977), edited and with an introduction, by Philip V. Cannistraro. According to Cannistraro, Salvemini displayed a balance between objectivity and political realism. The credibility of Salvemini’s arguments against Fascism springs from solid probatory evidence.
Salvemini believed that we should judge political leaders by the political environment in which they operate as well as by their achievement—or lack of achievement—while in office (see Gaetano Salvemini, 1959, p. 29). Ennio Di Nolfo (Mussolini e la Politica Estera Italiana, 1960), considered Salvemini the first historian to detail convincingly Mussolini’s idiosyncrasies in foreign policy.