The historian Paul Ginsborg, known for his studies on contemporary Italy and also for his commitment in the ranks of the Girotondi, at the time of the governments led by Silvio Berlusconi, passed away at the age of 76. English naturalized Italian, he had had positions in the universities of Turin and Siena and then went to occupy the chair of Contemporary European History at the University of Florence.
After the first study in 1978 dedicated to Daniele Manin and the Venetian revolution of 1848-49, Ginsborg published his most important work, Storia dell Italia dal postwar to today by Einaudi in two volumes in 1989. In addition to political dynamics, his eye was attentive to mentalities, customs, family relationships, and the transformations of civil society.
Born in London on 18 July 1945, however, Ginsborg had become Italian in all respects, and in our country he had developed his studies and his commitment. He placed his hopes of him in the “reflective middle class”, while he looked with an extremely critical eye at the leadership of Silvio Berlusconi, whom he believed to be the bearer of a patrimonial vision of politics supported by a vast media apparatus. He dedicated two books to Cavaliere and his way of acting in the public sphere: Berlusconi (Einaudi, 2003) and Berlusconismo (Laterza, 2011). A member of the Freedom and Justice association, Ginsborg became its president in 2019 and later president emeritus.