The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy

New. What drives terrorists to glorify violence? In The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy, Richard Drake seeks to explain the origins of Italian terrorism and the role that intellectuals played in valorizing the use of violence for political or social ends. Drake argues that a combination of socioeconomic factors and the influence of intellectual elites led to a sanctioning of violence by revolutionary political groups in Italy between 1969 and 1982. Drake explores what motivated Italian terrorists on both the Left and the Right during some of the most violent decades in modern Italian history and how these terrorists perceived the modern world as something to be destroyed rather than reformed. In 1989, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy received the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies. This second edition, which includes a new introduction by the author, searches for the origins of this impulse to violence and finds it in the works of ideologues including Julius Evola, the Italian "superfascist" philosopher who was affiliated with the Nazis. Drake's original work takes on new significance in light of Evola's recent surge in popularity for members of America's alt-right movement