Beyond the Cold War: Tempo Presente in Italy (Carlucci è autrice dei paragrafi contrassegnati con ** pp. 129-137)

Paola Carlucci investigates the complex intellectual and personal relationship between Ignazio Silone and Nicola Chiaromonte and the life of "Tempo Presente", the important journal they founded. Ignazio Silone first met Nicola Chiaromonte in 1934. Both were refugees from Fascist Italy. Both, for different reasons, were strongly anti-communist. In 1956 Silone and Chiaromonte founded Tempo Presente, thanks to the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) funding. At that time, it was the only way for them to bring forward their ideas in Italy, but Silone and Chiaromonte were perfectly aware of the dangers of being part of the CCF network. At the same time, they shared CCF’s broad aims. Tempo Presente failed because of its isolation in the Italian political and cultural scene, because of the strong personal contrasts between Chiaromonte and Silone and because the tensions with the CCF.