Examination procedure
<p>seminar presentation or paper </p>
Prerequisites
undergraduate students from the first to the fifth years and PhD
Syllabus
Module 2 traces the development of the bipolar world order from the end of the Second World War to the close of the Cold War. The lectures will examine the extent to which the history and eventual decline of this order were shaped by superpower rivalry, as well as by dynamics that cannot be reduced to East–West relations alone. Within this framework, the module will explore the trajectories of liberal, communist, and Catholic internationalisms, focusing on how they intersected with the history of postwar Italy. Lectures will include analysis of primary sources and discussion of major historiographical debates.
Bibliographical references
Mario Del Pero, Libertà e impero. Gli Stati Uniti e il mondo 1776-2016, Laterza, 2017
Michele Di Donato, Le socialdemocrazie in transizione. Una storia internazionale degli anni Settanta, il Mulino, 2024
Guido Formigoni, Storia d’Italia nella guerra fredda (1943-1978), Il Mulino, 2016
Gary Gerstle, Ascesa e declino dell'ordine neoliberale, Neri Pozza, 2024 (The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, Oxford University press, 2022)
Sandrine Kott, A World More Equal: An Internationalist Perspective on the Cold War, Columbia University Press, 2024
Silvio Pons, I comunisti italiani e gli altri. Visioni e legami internazionali nel mondo del Novecento, Einaudi, Torino, 2021
Federico Romero, Storia globale dell’età contemporanea. Dal dominio occidentale all'insicurezza multipolare, Carocci, 2025
Quinn Slobodian, Globalists. La fine dell’impero e la nascita del neoliberalismo, Meltemi, 2021 (The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Harvard University Press 2018)
Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013
Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History, Basic Books, 2017