The historic imaginary

"Focusing on ritual and mass visual representations of history in 1920s and 1930s Italy, The Historic Imaginary unveils how Italian fascism sought to institutionalize a modernist culture of history. The study takes a new historicist and microhistorical approach to cultural-intellectual history, integrating theoretical tools of analysis acquired from visual-cultural studies, art history, linguistics, and reception theory, in a sophisticated examination of visual modes of historical representation - from commemorations and monuments to exhibitions and mass media - spanning the entire period of the Italian fascist regime."--Jacket.