The image of the anarchist assassin haunted the corridors of power and the popular imagination in the late nineteenth century. Fear spawned a gross but persistent stereotype: a swarthy "Italian" armed with a bloody knife or revolver and bred to violence by a combination of radical politics, madness, innate criminality, and poor genes. That Italian anarchists targeted—and even killed—high-profile figures added to their exaggerated, demonic image.

Nunzio Pernicone and Fraser M. Ottanelli dig into the transnational experiences and the historical, social, cultural, and political conditions behind the phenomenon of anarchist violence in Italy. Looking at political assassinations in the 1890s, they illuminate the public effort to equate anarchy's goals with violent overthrow. Throughout, Pernicone and Ottanelli combine a cutting-edge synthesis of the intellectual origins, milieu, and nature of Italian anarchist violence with vivid portraits of its major players and their still-misunderstood movement.

A bold challenge to conventional thinking, Assassins against the Old Order demolishes a century of myths surrounding anarchist violence and its practitioners.

| Cover Title Copyright Contents Preface Introduction 1. The Risorgimento and the Origins of Anarchist Violence 2. Malfattori: Government Repression and Anarchist Violence 3. Bombings, Insurrections, and Cosmopolitanism: Paolo Lega and Sante Caserio 4. Crispi and the "Exceptional Laws" 5. Anarchist Assassins: Acciarito, Angiolillo, and Lucheni 6. Fatti di Maggio and Gaetano Bresci 7. U.S. Investigation and Death of the Giustiziere Conclusion: Terrorists or Giustizieri? Notes Index |"Assassins Against the Old Order is a significant historical study and a tribute to an eminent scholar." —Ovunque Siamo
"An outstanding book that deftly moves from an analysis of economic, political, and social conditions to the human scale through intimate descriptions of the values, lives, and actions of the most famous anarchist assassins. In explaining anarchist violence, it shows that the assassins aimed at killing symbols of state power and not persons."—Spencer Di Scala, author of Europe's Long Century: Politics, Society, Culture 1900-2000
"Pernicone's posthumously published work will open many eyes about Italian anarchist and their attentats (actions). Readers who want a clear understanding of Italian anarchism and anarchists will be well repaid by reading Assassins against the Old Order. Highly Recommended." —Choice
|Nunzio Pernicone was professor emeritus in the Department of History and Politics at Drexel University. He is the author of Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892 and Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel. He died in 2013. Fraser M. Ottanelli is a professor of history at the University of South Florida. His books include The Communist Party of the United States from the Depression to World War II and he is also coeditor of Letters from the Spanish Civil War: A U.S. Volunteer Writes Home.