:Having just read this discussion from the beginning, I believe I am now aware of why it is generating so much heat. When I wrote "a partial, distorted view of Italian history" I meant 'partial' in the sense of 'viewing in part', instead of 'as a whole'. I did not mean 'partial' in the sense of biased, the opposite of 'impartial'. If that is the cause of the ire this has stirred up, I profoundly apologise for expressing myself in that way. Having said that, it is indeed my deeply held view that too many people in Italy and people in the Italian diaspora around the world have a troublingly incomplete perspective of Italian history. This I believe is to an extent, but by no means mainly, caused by the willingness of too many Italian academics to focus on wrongs committed against innocent Italian people - wrongs of which there are very sadly far too many, and that is a fact - and not focus strongly enough, and even in some cases overlook, wrongs committed against innocent non-Italian people by the Italian state in the first half of the 20th century - wrongs of which there are very sadly far too many, and that is also a fact. You may dismiss this as "pure speculation (or bla-bla-bla, if you prefer)", or if you really want me to I can indeed spend time (of which I have very little these days) trawling through the books finding the relevant quotes about "what Battini calls ‘a voluntary collective amnesia’" in the next day or two. As you wish. I don't really see much point though, to be honest, as I don't see anything other than dogmatism here.