Fascism and the Italians of Montreal. An Oral History: 1922–1945 by Filippo Salvatore (review)

humanities 515 The book's main drawback comes in its organizational approach. By organizing the chapters around the individual newspapers as opposed to by theme there is a lot of overlap. Only the final chapter B `Anti-Semitism and the Local Fascist Press' B is arranged thematically, and it is the best chapter of the book. A chapter on the interactions of the papers with the Italian communities and their `Canadian' neighbours as a whole, a chapter on how the Ethiopian campaign was portrayed in B and affected B each paper, and a chapter each on the role of the Catholic church, local notables, and the Casa D'Italias in supporting and propagandizing fascism would have been useful. Another quibble I have with the book is its failure to address the issue of who was subscribing to the paper, who was reading the paper, and more important, if the contents of the papers had any impact on the Italian Canadians' support of fascism. It is one thing to assume that these papers had a profound impact on the promotion of fascism among ItalianCanadian communities B and in this I suspect Principe is right B but it is another to demonstrate it. I hope that this is a question Principe can address in the companion volume on anti-fascist newspapers, now being worked on. These quibbles should not detract from what is an interesting story of how fascism was propagandized in Italian-Canadian communities. And Principe tells the story in an engaging, easy to read manner. Written with passion and, unlike many books by academics, largely jargon-free, The Darkest Side of the Fascist Years will appeal to a wide audience, including those wanting to know more about fascism's hold on segments of Canada during the 1930s, those interested in the use of newspapers as a propaganda tool, and those interested in the experiences of Italians in Canada. (MICHELLE MCBRIDE) Filippo Salvatore. Fascism and the Italians of Montreal. An Oral History: 1922B1945 Translated by George Tombs Guernica 1998. 224. $20.00 In the early 1970s, while gathering background for a television program on Mussolini, Filippo Salvatore interviewed two members of Montreal's Italian community, thereby whetting his interest in the problem of how Montreal Italians reacted to fascism. Fifteen years later he began the interviews for this book. That delay was costly. For, as Salvatore admits, by then many of the key players were either `very old' or `dead,' which partially explains his not having executed the excellent idea for his book as fully as he might have. In consequence, Salvatore has produced an informative work for the general reader. However, his slim volume is more journalistic than scholarly. One hundred and seventy-six pages of transcripts of thirteen interviews 516 letters in canada 1999 Salvatore conducted from December 1986 to June 1987 follow a thirty-page introduction by the author. In his introduction Salvatore ably conveys the potential value of his work, setting his study into both the historical context of Quebec and the historiographical context of work done on Italian Canadians. Historically he demonstrates that `Fascist ideology played a very important role in Quebec.' Historiographically, he shows how his book fills a gap, especially by complementing Roberto Perin's Conflits d'allégeance: La propagande du consulat italien à Montréal dans les années 1930, based on `official' documents, with his ```first person'' version of events.' Salvatore's vague explanation of how he chose persons to interview is less satisfying: `I first drew up a list of names of people who, according to various sources, were in a position to shed light on some little-known aspects of the most significant periods of Italianese community life in Montreal during the fascist period.' In the absence of a firmer basis of selection, some interviewees seem chosen more for their achievements after 1945 than for what they could contribute to understanding the fascist period. The remainder of the introduction is a narrative of events in Italy and in Montreal from 1922 to 1945. The recounting of an anecdote attributed to`an employee at the municipal archive' indicates that Salvatore consulted archives, but just how and where this archival research informed...