This issue of the JMIS provides an opportunity to express our sorrow at the loss of four scholars who many of us knew best as colleagues, friends or mentors, and to celebrate their outstanding contributions to the study of modern Italy. Percy, the political scientist, Paul and Stuart, the historians, were British by birth, as well as Italian - Neapolitan, Piedmontese, Florentine - by election. Gianni was Venetian by birth, but his career as the foremost (and outside Italy best known) economic historian of 19th and 20th century Italy brought him into contact with British and American economic historians, and he had long established teaching commitments in both countries.
Over a period that spans nearly six decades, all four brought fresh perspectives to the study of modern Italy, its politics, economy, culture and history. Their individual careers and contributions are discussed in the essays that follow by Luciano Brancaccio, Kate Ferris, Giovanni Farese and John Davis, offering perspectives that show how their work has inspired scholars of modern Italy from different generations and national backgrounds.
Fascism, post-World War II Italy’s return to democracy, the often dramatic and uncertain experiences of the Republic and then the political turmoil and innovations since the early 1990s have made Italy a constant subject of scrutiny. In their different fields, our former colleagues were prominent contributors to this process of analysis and to the principal public and historiographical debates of recent decades. Their distinctive contributions have shaped our understanding of modern Italy in many different ways, and they have played important roles in the ‘internationalization’ of modern Italian studies that is a central theme of Thomas Kroll’s broader historiographical survey with which this issue concludes. While the stimulus for these changes has come from inside Italy as well as from outside, greater emphasis on the international contexts of modern Italian history, combined with the transnational perspectives in which these are now studied, have created new opportunities for dialogue between Italian and non-Italian scholars.
The work of our four former colleagues has made important contributions to these developments that have seen research agendas shift decisively away from the more narrowly national perspectives present in the work of preceding generations. Their scholarly contributions are and will remain essential points of reference for all those studying modern Italy, and we can be sure that their example will be kept alive through the work and teaching of their many former students.