Dictating Food: Autarchy, Food Provision, and Consumer Politics in Fascist Italy, 1922–1943

Abstract

During the two decades of fascist dictatorship, Italy underwent dramatic changes. Conventional accounts tended to emphasise the conservative character of fascist policies, economic stagnation, and social repression. By contrast, recent studies have produced a more complex picture of the Mussolini era and of fascist attempts to create a ‘new society’. Beyond their pure instrumental character, ideology and culture are now interpreted in the wider context of a modern mass and consumer society that emerged in Italy after the First World War.¹ Industrialisation gained momentum and left a deep impact on labour markets, family organisation, and social institutions. Rather than pointing to the backward aspects of economic and social order, historians now stress the dynamics, conflicts, and cultural ambivalences of ‘fascist modernities’.²