Andrea Bonoldi

This anthology analyses Italy's economic interests in Austria and in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe in the first post-war years. Although the ‘commemorative year 2018’ led to an expansion of the state of research with regard to the political upheavals that took place after 1918, the broad and at the same time very relevant subject area of the economic, financial and structural developments of these years has hardly been addressed. An economic area that had grown over centuries, such as the Danube Monarchy, could not simply be cut up by new political borders. However, new structures were created in the post-war years, many of them still have an impact today. The 22 contributions by an international group of authors cover five thematic blocks: Political, economic and cultural perspectives; currency and public finances; economy, trade and infrastructure; business and entrepreneurship; population and politics. The material difficulties associated with post-war reconstruction were combined with an arduous process of building new institutional structures. Domestic political uncertainties and material problems intensified the social contrasts and led to an atmosphere in which the use of violence appeared justified. This volume therefore deals with a particularly difficult phase in the relationship between Austria, the successor states of the Danube Monarchy and Italy, and thus makes an important contribution to understanding the historical processes that characterise this area even today.

In the Alps as in many mountain areas, livestock farming has constituted an important source of income, especially since the Middle Ages. The importance of livestock farming within the Alpine economy has changed over time due to the dynamics of supply and demand combined with evolving environmental, technological and institutional constraints. This paper focuses on the latter aspect and attempts to reconstruct how the relative importance of the production factors of land, labour and capital changed throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a mountainous area of eastern Trentino. The underlying objective of the investigation is to provide a micro-level empirical basis for hypotheses advanced in the literature regarding the evolution of a crucial sector in the Alpine economy, drawing attention to the long-term role of exogenous and endogenous factors as well as elements of continuity and change. The work is grounded in multiple sources drawn from local archives and official statistics. It demonstrates the flexibility of local communities in managing to sustainably utilize local resources over several periods.