"An extremely interesting and well-presented analysis of the Church's losing battle to preserve its vision of 'Catholic Italy' against the forces of liberalism and secularism...I do not think anyone else has really focussed so sharply on the issues discussed here."—John Pollard , author of
The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-1932: A Study in Conflict"The Devil and the 'Dolce Vita' addresses a key topic and a key period in contemporary religious history, crucial to understanding the different trajectories of America and Italy: the culture of Italian Catholics from the early post-World War II to the mid-1970s, the first decade of the post—Vatican II period. Highly recommended for all those who want to understand the important differences within Catholicism in the Western Hemisphere in .dealing with secular modernity."—Massimo Faggioli, Villanova University
"Roy Domenico has written a masterful account of the cultural politics of Italian Catholics and their effort to temper politics with religion in the three decades that followed World War II. Clearly argued and lucidly written, The Devil and the 'Dolce Vita' unravels the struggle of Italian Catholics against the challenge of secularization, lending new insights into the Catholic reformulation of the modern. Grounded in extensive archival research, this work deserves as wide a readership as its scholarship is sophisticated and original."—Rosario Forlenza, Luiss University
"In his suggestively titled The Devil and the 'Dolce Vita,' Roy Domenico, one of our leading scholars on contemporary Italy, offers a refreshing look into the cultural politics of Italian Catholicism in the crucial decades after the fall of Fascism and the end of the Second World War. Domenico masterfully weaves together broad narrative threads of post-war Italian history with detailed analysis of lesser-known sources that tell us much that we did not know about Catholic attempts to influence cultural practices and social mores. This engagingly written book will greatly enrich our understanding of the often caricatured and polemicized place of Catholicism in Italian politics and civil society."—Robert A. Ventresca, King's University College at Western University
"Between Church and politics, faith and hedonism, The Devil and the 'Dolce Vita' is an accurate and compelling portrait of the Italian Catholic world at the time of the great secularization."—Eliana Versace, Istituto Paolo VI, Italy
