AIS

Even if the origins of sociological thinking in Italy go back to the age of Enlightenment, it was in the 19th century, characterized by the intellectual vivacity of Italian positivism, that we can speak of a first form of sociological inquiry. Italian sociology contributed to the development of the very first studies of social sciences in Europe, but it lost ground and fell behind other national European sociologies. Perhaps a sufficient explanation can be that the Fascist movement was in power from 1922 to 1945. But other reasons are at the origin of the impossible continuation of such a scientific approach. Some subtle links are between a quite promising starting phase of studies and the new steps, which occurred by the middle of the 20th century, after the slow down during the period between the two world wars, in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s. Shall we say that there was an interruption, a hiatus, which separates the first moment, far off now, and a second moment, relatively more recent? Probably the past dynamics and those acting now are much more complex than might apparently seem without a deep investigation.