Italian Sport and the Challenges of Its Recent Historiography

Since the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, the role of sport in the country’s social, political, and economic development has been significant. With three national sporting dailies in the postwar period, as well as hundreds of sport-specific publications, the potential for research into the nation’s sporting history is considerable. However, while the importance of music, art, theatre, opera, and cinema in modern Italy’s development has been widely considered, analysis of the role of sport has been conducted by a dedicated minority of sports, rather than social or cultural, historians. Much existing research has taken nationalism as a base. With particular focus upon the Liberal and Fascist periods, the postwar era is largely neglected. Studies tend to be sport- or event-specific, and the bulk of contributions come from well-established names. Better contextualizing of sport’s role in the modernization of Italy and penetrating mainstream history are the pressing challenges, ideally for a new generation of scholars.