Contact Information

Dr Tom Behan
Office: CNW217
University of Kent
Canterbury. CT2 7NF

Email: T.H.Behan@kent.ac.uk

Select Bibliography

• The Italian Resistance: fascists, guerrillas and the Allies (2009)
• Defiance : the story of one man who stood up to the Sicilian mafia (2008)
• How capitalism created the mafia (2008)
• Aldo Moro killing: a miscalculation that almost destroyed the Italian left (2008)
• The legacy of Giuseppe Garibaldi - the 19th century's Che Guevara (2007)
• Giovanni Pesce: leading Italian partisan, who kept fighting for freedom (2007)
• The resistible rise of Benito Mussolini (2003)
• See Naples and die: the Camorra and organised crime (2002)
• Genoa: Nothing can be the same again (2001)
• Dario Fo: Revolutionary Theatre (2000)
• Interview: the return of Italian Communism? (1999)
• The long awaited moment : the working class and the Italian Communist Party in Milan, 1943-1948 (1997)
• The Camorra (1996)
• Forward to 1921: the dissolution of the Italian Communist Party (1991)

Teaching

IT523: The Italian First Republic
This is a module of social and political history, which will explore various aspects of Italian post-war society, including the North-South divide, the 1968 student rebellion, the women’s movement, terrorism and political corruption. It will concentrate on the everyday life and aspirations of the paese reale rather than the institutions of the paese legale.

IT527 The Italian Resistance Movement
The Italian Resistance began as a spontaneous grass-roots movement aimed at ending Nazi invasion and Fascist domination of the country. In this module the various motivations of ordinary participants will be studied through the use of general histories, novels, personal memoirs and songs. The instability and popular dissatisfaction that characterised the immediate post-war years will also be analysed.

IT553 Midnight in the Century: Fascism Film & Literature
This module examines a vital period for understanding modern Italy – the fascist era of 1922-45 – and the echoes it still finds today. Through the use of both film and literature, the social basis of fascism will be examined, together with an in-depth examination of literature written by anti-fascists and published subsequently.

IT554 Cosa Nostra: Organised Crime and Italian Politics
This module will examine the social and political implantation of the Sicilian Mafia and Neapolitan Camorra in the post-war period. Particular attention will be paid to how ordinary people collude with organised crime, its links with 5 politicians and the business world, the importance of public sector contracts and the role of women. Various strategies for defeating organised crime will also be discussed.

IT555 ‘Ye without sin’ – How Organized Crime Arose in Southern Italy
This module will examine the emergence of the Neapolitan Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia into southern Italian society from their inception up until unification in 1860. Issues of rural and urban criminality will be addressed, as will the nature of the new Italian state, the lack of development in southern Italy and the repression of the fascist period during 1922-45.

Research supervision: Italian resistance, organised crime, Italian first republic