This book focuses on the major role played by intellectual journals within the Italian Left as aggregators of political forces after the events of 1956 had partially disrupted the bipolar balance of the Cold War. Considering that New Left periodicals have rarely been examined collectively as political and intellectual actors in their own right, they have rarely—and only in individual cases—been considered to be central to progressive politics and culture. This work highlights their specific performative function. The first part of the book addresses the blossoming of Marxism and the chronology of the so-called 'long 1968' in Italy. It goes on to examine various types of journals to illustrate how New Left periodicals should be studied in relation to the traditional parties and links with foreign countries. It also draws attention to the moral rather than ideological aspects characterizing the youthful contribution to the New Left before 1968. Finally, the book contextualizes and then deepens the weight of 'Catholic dissent' and its magazines on the New Left, bringing into closer dialogue two fields of scholarship that have often developed separately. The book provides an original account of the Italian New Left from various points of view, drawing on many ideas that are taken for granted in the literature and questioning the role of the journals and their contributors, in part to explain how the political turmoil lasted longer in Italy (until 1977) than in other Western countries. This work is of interest to researchers dealing with Italian studies, political studies, Marxism and anti-capitalism, but also university students of history and social sciences.

Fabio Guidali, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Dipartimento di Studi storici 'Federico Chabod', University of Milan, Italy. He investigates intellectuals and culture in twentieth and twenty-first century Europe, with particular emphasis on associations, networks and forms of political engagement. His research also focuses on the history of journalism and the popular press. He is the author of two intellectual biographies (Il secolo lungo di Gabriele Mucchi, 2012, and Un intellettuale europeo. Umberto Campagnolo tra antifascismo e guerra fredda, 2023) and of a monograph on the political engagement of European intellectuals (Scrivere con il mondo in testa, 2016). He is also co-author of L’AIDS in Italia (2022). He was local scientific coordinator of a national project on discrimination in post-war Italian newspapers (LisDiGio, PRIN 2022) and is a member of the advisory board of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit).