The 1930s to the 1950s in Italy witnessed large increases in film-going, radio-listening, and the sale of music and weekly magazines. The industries thatmade and sold commercial, cultural products were transformed by the new technologiesof reproduction and new approaches to marketing anddistribution.
Yet historians tend to place the "real" genesis ofmass culture in the 1960s, or to generalize about the harnessing of mass culture tothe Fascist political project, without considering what kind of mass culture existedat the time and whether this harnessing was successful. This book draws on extensivenew evidence, including oral histories and archival material, to explore possiblecontinuities between the uses of mass culture before and after World WarII.