Gli Stati Uniti e la questione comunista tra Guerra fredda, scenari globali e spazio transatlantico. Nuove acquisizioni storiografiche

This article surveys recent historiography on Italy’s “communist question” by linking the Italian Communist Party (PCI)’s trajectory in the 1970s to the reconfiguration of U.S. power, the emergence of globalization, and the transatlantic arena. Starting from the impact in Italy of The Shock of the Global (2011), it reconstructs how scholars have moved beyond a mainly East-West framework to examine the 1970s in light of issues such as interdependence after the end of Bretton Woods, the oil shocks, new venues of Western coordination (from the G7 onward), and the growing importance of human rights, environmental politics, feminism, and transnational social movements. It then maps how these approaches have reshaped studies of the PCI, in particular its European turn and Eurocommunism, its engagement with decolonization and North- South debates, and its encounter with expert networks and think tanks. The conclusion argues for holding together global processes and the enduring constraints of the Cold War.