California Italian Studies

This article considers why the idea of an ideal or planned political future for Italy went into decline in the last quarter of the twentieth century, after having dominated the country’s political thinking for much of the modern era. What form did imagined futures take in the traditions of both left and right? Why did this way of thinking virtually disappear after the mid 1970s? What are the signs that future-oriented thinking may be starting to reappear in the twenty-first century?