History Of The Italian Republic
After World War II and the overthrow of Mussolini's fascist regime, Italy's history was dominated by the Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana, DC) political party for 50 years, while the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party (PCI); this situation prevailed until the crisis of the Soviet Union and the Tangentopoli scandal and operation Mani pulite, which led to the reform of the electoral system (from almost perfect proportional to uninominal/multi-seat circumscriptions) and radical restructuring of the Italian political system, including the dissolution of most traditional political parties.
In 1994, in the midst of the mani pulite operation which shook political parties, media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, owner of three private TV channels, won the elections, becoming one of Italy's most important political and economic figures for the next decade. Ousted after a few months of government, he returned to power in 2001, lost the 2006 general election five years later to Romano Prodi and his Union coalition but won the 2008 general election and returned to power in June 2008. In November 2011, Berlusconi lost his majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and resigned. His successor, Mario Monti formed a new government, composed by "technicians" and supported by both the center-left and the center-right.
Read more about History Of The Italian Republic: The Birth of The Republic (1946-48), Elections After World War II (1946–1948)
Famous quotes containing the words history of the, history of, history, italian and/or republic:
“The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The French courage proceeds from vanity—the German from phlegm—the Turkish from fanaticism & opium—the Spanish from pride—the English from coolness—the Dutch from obstinacy—the Russian from insensibility—but the Italian from anger.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“While the Republic has already acquired a history world-wide, America is still unsettled and unexplored. Like the English in New Holland, we live only on the shores of a continent even yet, and hardly know where the rivers come from which float our navy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)