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Giovanni Gozzini and Renzo Martinelli (1998) Storia del Partito comunista ‘italiano. VII. Dall'attentato a Togliatti all'VIII Congresso (Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore), pp. i‐xviii, 1–659, 80,000 lire. The publication of the seventh volume of the ‘History of the Italian Communist Party’ is a noteworthy event. In the party's often tumultuous history, few periods were as difficult as the one covered in this volume: 1948–56 embraces the crushing defeat of the Left in the 1948 elections, and covers the depth of the Cold War, when the PCI's subjugation to the Soviets was never seriously in question. The Journal of Modern Italian Studies therefore believes that it is more than justified to devote more attention than usual to this volume. The result is a series of extended reviews by four students of various aspects of Italian Communism. Stephen Hellman underscores the insights that the work provides concerning the party organization, and notes how basically unflattering is the portrait of Palmiro Togli...

‘Q. Why the Caymans? You could have gone anywhere. You had a lot of money. You could have gone to Paris, the Bahamas?

Our patient presented with three episodes of deep coma in 5 weeks, followed by a complete recovery. The neuroradiological tests and spinal fluid analysis excluded structural lesions, including subarachnoid hemorrhage, from the diagnosis. A nonconvulsive status was excluded by 24-hour EEG monitoring. The EEGs and brainstem auditory evoked responses were abnormal during ictus, but they reversed to normal with the clinical recovery. Timely neurophysiological tests helped in the diagnosis of basilar artery migraine.

The Italian Communist Party (PCI) is presently in a very uncomfortable situation which can. ironically. be traced to the unprecedented successes the PCI has enjoyed in recent years.

For a communist party, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) enjoys a remarkably good reputation among scholars and intellectuals. Although it is the largest party of its type in the West, this image obviously reflects much more than electoral or organizational success. The party’s flexibility, independence, and overall “liberal” nature have all reinforced its reputation, especially when it is compared to its French counterpart. These positive qualities have most often been apparent to non-Italians with regard to the PCI’s relationship to the Soviet Union and what used to be called the international communist movement. Indeed, the PCI’s claims about this movement being polycentric, as well as the very title it chose for its strategy, “The Italian Road to Socialism,” seem to suggest that the strategy basically concerns the PCI’s relationship to its external, international environment.1 Recently, however, more attention has begun to be paid to the strategy’s pretensions with regard to its internal environments, both organizational and domestic.2 This is extremely important, for the aims of the via italiana al socialismo have always been most ambitious on the level of domestic strategy. It is surely on this level that the via italiana raises the most interesting questions for students of Marxism — as opposed to students of the communist movement. For the Italian Road to Socialism is, above all else, a formulation which claims to be an original prescription for socialist revolution in the West.