ARTURO COLOMBO Nell'Italia fra le due guerre. Vittorio Beonio-Brocchieri giornalista-aviatore
211 Gennaio-Aprile 2006 Anno LXXI n. 1
Summary - This essay does not discuss the activity of Vittorio
Beonio-Brocchieri (1902-1978) as a historian of political thought and associate
editor of the journal “Il Politico”; rather, it aims to analyse his singular
work as a journalist and aviator, above all between the early 1930s to the
1950s. Before the “eye” of the television was to bring images from all over
the planet Earth directly into people’s homes, Beonio-Brocchieri showed people
the world through his articles in the “Corriere della Sera” newspaper and
later in his own books. As an intrepid and solitary aviator, Beonio-Brocchieri
told the stories of peoples and countries ranging from one pole to the other – from
Alaska to the Far East, from Russia (then at the height of Stalinism) to the
African continent and to the communities of the Americas. Although somewhat
conditioned by the Fascist regime then existing in Italy, Beonio-Brocchieri’s
ability to combine “journeys through time” (that is, the historical
perspective) with “journeys through space” (that is, the geographical
dimension), lent his journalism great richness, a plurality of experiences, and
a rare series of illuminating comparisons. Even in today’s very different
world, these comparisons provide an effective testimony to the realization that
Europe was no longer at the centre of the world and that the time had come face
the challenge of moving “beyond Eurocentrism”. This, many years before
theorists were to begin speaking of a fragile, “multipolar” world.
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