Cardoza, Anthony L. 1947-

PERSONAL: Born January 31, 1947, in Berkeley, CA; married, 1989; children: one. Education: Princeton University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office— History Department, Loyola University, Chicago, 6525 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL, 60626. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Historian, educator, and writer. Loyola University, Chicago, IL, professor of history.

AWARDS, HONORS: Howard R. Marraro prize, American Historical Association, 1998.

WRITINGS

Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901-1926, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1982.

Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy: The Piedmontese Nobility, 1861-1930, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Patrizi in un Mondo Plebeio, Donzelli Editore (Rome, Italy), 1999.

Benito Mussolini: The First Fascist, Pearson Longman (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Geoffrey Symcox) La Storia di Torino (title means “The History of Turin”), Einaudi (Turin, Italy), 2006.

Contributor to scholarly journals, including Journal of Modern History and European History Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: Anthony L. Cardoza is an historian who specializes in modern Italian social and political history. In his book Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901-1926, Cardoza writes about the varieties of fascism and fascism’s development in local and regional areas. Focusing on both the culture and the economy of the era, the author “portrays the dynamic, development of agriculture and commerce, labor and politics, finance and journalism,” according to History Teacher contributor James A. Young. Writing that the book is “bound to become a classic of its genre,” Young also noted that the author “has fashioned a highly useful instrument for the better understanding of history on several levels.” F.M. Snowden wrote in the English Historical Review that the author “analyses the violent reaction of landlords and commercial farmers in Bologna province to the subversive challenge presented by the unionization of farmworkers and sharecroppers.” Noting that “Cardoza’s work fills an important gap in the field,” Snowden went on to write: “Cardoza’s work is original. . . in the wealth of new material he presents in a sound and workmanlike book.” In a review in the American Historical Review, Donald Howard Bell noted that the author “has written a study that in some respects supplies a benchmark for future investigations.”

Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy: The Piedmontese Nobility, 1861-1930 focuses on the growing influence of industrialization and democratic views on the Piedmontese nobility from the late middle ages to the Risorgimento era in Italy. The author discusses the nobility’s slide from political and social influence, their adaptability to change, and their plans for survival. Charles L. Bertrand, writing in the Canadian Journal of History, commented: “The author’s view contrasts sharply with the perceived wisdom that the story of the nobility in the nineteenth century is one of slow, but inevitable, amalgamation with the bourgeoisie. Cardoza demonstrates convincingly that the Piedmontese nobility continued to inculcate aristocratic values in their children into the twentieth century.” Writing in the Journal of Social History, Raymond Grew noted that the author is able to “present his careful research on the Piedmontese nobility as a case study with broader implications for Italian social and political history.” Grew added: “The research is remarkable in extent and care. Because the number of cases is necessarily small, Cardoza eschews elaborate statistical manipulations, relying primarily on percentages. Individual readers may in some instances choose to give a slightly different emphasis to the patterns Cardoza uncovers, but his basic claims appear irrefutable.”History: Review of New Books contributor Andrew Rolle wrote that the author “has produced a splendid account of an important component of Italian life.” Rolle also pointed out: “No other book in English covers this topic.” A contributor to the Historian wrote that Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy“has been praised as a major contribution to our understanding of both the Italian and wider European nobility.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, February, 1984, Donald Howard Bell, review of Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism: The Province of Bologna, 1901-1926, pp. 160-162.

Canadian Journal of History, April, 1999, Charles L. Bertrand, review of Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy: The Piedmontese Nobility, 1861-1930, p. 112.

English Historical Review, October, 1985, F.M. Snowden, review of Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, pp. 932-933.

Historian, winter, 2000, review of Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy, p. 376.

History: Review of New Books, spring, 1999, Andrew Rolle, review of Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy, p. 123.

History Teacher, February, 1984, James A. Young, review of Agrarian Elites and Italian Fascism, pp. 310-311.

Journal of Modern History, June, 2000, David Laven, review of Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy, p. 547.

Journal of Social History, winter, 1999, Raymond Grew, review of Aristocrats in Bourgeois Italy, p. 507.

ONLINE

American Historical Association Web site, http://www.historians.org/ (November 17, 2006), information on Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History.

Loyola University Chicago Web site, http://www.luc.edu/ (November 17, 2006), faculty profile of author.