Dr Massimo Asta
I am an historian of modern and contemporary European history. My research interests include History of Economic Thought, Labour History, Political Economy, Left Politics, Intellectual History.
Luigi Salvatorelli Foundation’s Research Grant 2012.
Spadolini Nuova Antologia Prize - Ph.D. thesis Award 2013.
Fernand Braudel Postdoctoral Fellowship (IFER) - Maison des Sciences de l’Homme of Paris - Sciences Po 2012-2013.
Research in Paris Postdoctoral Fellowship - University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne 2015-2016.
Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellowship - University of Cambridge 2019-2021 Supervisor: Pedro Ramos Pinto
Isaac Newton Trust, Research Grant - University of Cambridge 2021-2022
FCT Research Associate - Instituto de História Contemporânea NOVA FCSH Lisbon 2022-2028
SCIENCES PO, PARIS
January 2017-December 2018 - Undergraduate level.
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
History & Politics Part IB
Long essay 'How and to what extent did the ‘Keynesian Revolution’ shape the economies of Western Europe after Second World War?'
History Part IB :
Co-Convenor RP4 'Labouring Lives'
Supervisor Paper 18 'European History Since 1890'
Supervisor Paper T14 'Europe's Modern Age of Violence, 1914-1949'
'Historical Thinking II'
History Part II
Lecturer Advanced Topic 'Work and Workers in the Age of Productivity: Europe 1945-1980s'
MPhil Economic and Social History
Lecturer 'Central Concepts in Economic and Social History'
Convenor 'History of Economic Thought' (option Paper)
PhD Supervision
Arvand Mirsafian, A struggle for production: workers and politics of rationalization in Sweden in the 1930s
My current research explores the interweaving between engagement, profession and economic ideas. It adopts a transnational-comparative prosopographical, both qualitative and quantitative, approach, taking as its focus France, United Kingdom, Italy, and German speaking countries from the 1870s to the 1920s.
I welcome inquiries from students wishing to work on modern and contemporary European history with particular interest in politics and economics.
Early Career Researcher Commitee Faculty of history, University of Cambridge
Liaison for the Economic and Social History graduate workshop, University of Cambridge
Convenor Labour History Cluster, University of Cambridge
Contact
Tags & Themes
School of Humanities & Social Sciences
17 Mill Lane
Cambridge CB2 1RX
Key Publications
Books
Girolamo Li Causi, un rivoluzionario del Novecento (1896-1977), Roma, Carocci, 2017, p. 327.
(reviews in Twentieth Century Communism, Ricerche di Storia Politica, Italia Contemporanea, Mondo Contemporaneo, Histoire-Politique, il Mestiere di Storico, and newspapers il Manifesto, il Fatto Quotidiano).
and Pedro Ramos Pinto, eds., The Value of Work since the 18th Century. Theory, Measurement, Custom and Conflict, London, Bloomsbury, 2023.
Articles, Book Chapters and Dictionary entries
Political economy and Economic thought
‘Il quaderno di Girolamo Li Causi sul capitale finanziario italiano’, Studi Storici, 52, (3), 2011, p. 639-679.
‘Une évolution inachevée. Les partis communistes français et italien face au gouvernement de l’économie, 1944-1947’, Histoire Politique. Politique, Culture, Société, 24, (3), 2014, pp. 51-71.
‘Jean Pronteau’, C. Pennetier, P. Boulland, eds., Dictionnaire biographique mouvement ouvrier mouvement social, t. 10, 1940-1968 de la seconde guerre mondiale à mai 1968, Paris, Ed. de l’Atelier, 2014.
‘Economisti e partito. L’expertise economica nel partito comunista italiano e francese, 1945-1960’, Studi Storici, (1), 2016, p. 167-188.
‘Entre crise du capitalisme et productivisme. Circulations et hybridations dans le communisme italien et français des années 1940’, FMSH-WP, 126, 2017.
‘Le PCF et les conférences économiques internationales, 1958-1975’, J. Vigreux, R. Ducoulombier, eds., Le PCF, un parti global (1919-1989). Approches transnationales et comparées, Dijon, Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2019, p. 213-222.
'1966, la conférence internationale de Choisy-le-Roi: la montée en puissance des économistes', Guillaume Roubaud-Quashie, ed., 100 ans de Parti Communiste Français, Cherche Midi, 2020, p. 106-107.
'Le partisan et l’academique. Retour sur le Traité marxiste d’économie politique, 1971', Histoire Politique, 48, 2022, p. 1-21.
‘Antonio Pesenti’, P. Barucci, S. Misiani, F. Manzalini, M. Mosca, eds., Scrittori italiani di economia durante il Regno d’Italia, Milano, Franco Angeli, forthcoming.
‘Benvenuto Griziotti’, P. Barucci, S. Misiani, F. Manzalini, M. Mosca, eds., Scrittori italiani di economia durante il Regno d’Italia, Milano, Franco Angeli, forthcoming.
and Pedro Ramos Pinto, 'Introduction: Exploring the Political Economy of Wages', The Value of Work since the 18th Century. Theory, Measurement, Custom and Conflict, London, Bloomsbury, 2023, 1-36.
'Down with the Caro-Vita! A Social and Intellectual History of the Cost of Living Statistics in Italy, 1910s-1930s', The Value of Work since the 18th Century. Theory, Measurement, Custom and Conflict, London, Bloomsbury, 2023, 227-248.
Italian Left
‘Da Serrati a Lenin. La formazione politica e culturale di Girolamo Li Causi’, Giornale di Storia Contemporanea, (2), 2011, p. 268-301.
‘Quale autonomia? Quale meridionalismo? Il PCI, il sindacato e la costruzione della democrazia in Sicilia’, Annali della fondazione Giuseppe Di Vittorio, (2012), 2013, p. 55-94.
‘La Resistenza come laboratorio. Li Causi e la politica di unità nazionale in Sicilia’, T. Baris, C. Verri, eds., I siciliani nella Resistenza, Palermo, Sellerio, 2019, p. 242-260.
in collaboration with Marc Lazar ‘The Italian Socialist Party from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s: Socialists and a Weak State‘ M. Lazar, M. Fulla, eds. European Socialists and the State in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries, London, Palgrave, 2020, p. 363-378.
‘Il Mezzogiorno’, in Silvio Pons, ed., Il comunismo italiano nella storia del Novecento, Roma, Viella, 2021, p. 369-384.
Social movements
‘Sicilianismo come populismo e ideologia della transizione’, S. Salmeri, ed., Democrazia, educazione e populismo, Enna, Euno Edizioni, 2012, p. 151-170.
‘Between ‘resistance’ to the war and social conflict. Revolts and ‘peasant republics’ in southern Italy, 1943-1945’, Workers of the World. International Journal of Strikes and Social Conflicts, (5), 2014, p. 165-177.
'Fascismo e pratiche carcerarie della censura sui detenuti politici', Studi Storici, 2, 2023, p. 1-22.
Theory and historiography
‘Intellectual history as history of engagement? The French scholarship’, Modern Intellectual History, 2021, 1-11. doi:10.1017/S1479244321000184.
Book reviews
Michele Di Donato, I comunisti italiani e la sinistra europea. Il PCI e i rapporti con le socialdemocrazie (1964-1984), Roma, Carocci, 2015, Histoire@politique. Politique, Culture, Société, June 2016.
Stefano Mangullo, Dal fascio allo scudo crociato. Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, politica e lotte sociali nell’Agro Pontino, 1944-1961, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2015, Italia Contemporanea, 3, 2016.
Mathieu Fulla, Les socialistes français et l’économie (1944-1981). Une histoire économique du politique, Parigi, Presses de Sciences Po, 2016, Rivista Storica del Socialismo, 2, 2017.
Tommaso Baris, Gregorio Sorgonà, eds, Pio La Torre. Dirigente del PCI, Palermo, Istituto Poligrafico Europeo, 2019, Passato e Presente, 112/1, 2021.
Other publications
'Les gauches européennes renouent-elles progressivement avec le protectionnisme?' The Conversation May 24, 2019