On October 1, 1943 the Allied Fifth Army entered Naples and established a military government that lasted until December 1945. During the occupation Naples became the main testing ground of difficult interactions, which were fraught with benevolence and fear, trust, and suspicion on all sides and challenged the habits and values of both occupiers and occupied on a daily basis. In this talk Paola Gambarota discusses her book in progress American Naples. Cross-Cultural Memories of an Occupation (1943–1945), which examines a broad range of sources – including newspapers, newsreels, photos, novels, films, poetry, plays, and diaries – in order to understand the impact of the occupation on the culture of the Southern metropolis and on the lives and work of international artists and intellectuals who experienced this historical event and participated both in the making and in the writing of history.

Gambarota is the ACLS/Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellow at the American Academy in Rome and associate professor in the Department of Italian at Rutgers University.