The economic miracle
In a few years a largely rural, poor country becomes an industrial power, with Fiat 500s, Vespas, televisions and a vast migration from South to North.
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
- The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 — Christopher Duggan, Allen Lane (2007)
Helped by Marshall Plan aid, cheap labour, the European Common Market (Italy was a founding member in 1957) and state companies such as ENI, the Italian economy grew at rates of 5–6% a year and more in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Fiat’s 500 car, launched in 1957, Olivetti typewriters, Vespa and Lambretta scooters and household appliances poured out of northern factories. Television arrived in 1954 and did more to spread standard Italian than decades of schooling.
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
- Storia linguistica dell'Italia unita — Tullio De Mauro, Laterza (1963)
The miracle drew millions of southerners and north-easterners to Turin, Milan and Genoa, where many lived in overcrowded housing and faced signs refusing to rent to southerners. Historians such as Paul Ginsborg describe a social transformation of unprecedented speed, but one that left the South behind and public services underfunded.
- A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 — Paul Ginsborg, Penguin (1990)
Why it matters today
The "boom" made modern Italy: Made in Italy design, fashion and cars, the beach holidays and consumer goods of "La dolce vita". Many Italians look back on it with nostalgia as the time the country moved forward together, a contrast with the slow growth of recent decades. It also emptied villages, swelled northern cities with southern migrants and laid the ground for the social conflicts of the late 1960s.