The political economy of shopkeeping in Milan, 1886-1922

This is the first monograph dealing with any aspect of the experience of the Italian petite bourgeoisie. From the mid-1880s a shopkeeper movement developed in Milan, centred around a shopkeeper newspaper, a federation of shopkeeper trade associations and a shopkeeper bank. Initially the movement aligned itself with the Radicals in city politics, but in 1904 it was shopkeeper representatives who set in chain the sequence of events that led to the fall of the first Radical-Socialist administration within the city. The author explains these events with reference to the business of shopkeeping itself. He analyses the trades, techniques, tax structure and topography of the Milanese retail sector. The study traces the history of the contest between shops and cooperatives, and the changing nature of the shopkeeper's relationship with his employees, and with his clientele. Considerable emphasis is placed upon the politics of the shopkeeper movement. These are analysed in the context both of Italian history and of the debates over petit-bourgeois identity and autonomy which have become essential for our understanding of modern European history. In his final chapters the author confronts the crucial question of why it was the Milanese shopkeepers were to be found on the right in the years that led up to the Fascist takeover in Italy.