An illustrated study which explores the changing idea of modernism in Italian architecture 1890-1940. It systematically treats the major architects and movements of the period and explores how they were used by the Fascist state. It also examines the legacy of the Romantic revolution.

His study of Novecento architecture chronicles a movement whose use of classical detailing created a "postmodernism" contemporaneous with the pioneering buildings of the International Style elsewhere in Europe and preceding its arrival in Italy. Etlin undermines the notion that the architects of Italian Rationalism blindly followed an antihistorical credo, by bringing to light the profoundly contextual nature of the abstract geometries of the best Rationalist architecture. The final section, devoted to Fascism, focuses on Terragni's famous Casa del Fascio in Como and the Danteum project by Terragni and Lingeri. Etlin concludes with a consideration of the anti-Semitic attacks on modern architecture during the Fascist racial campaign of 1938.

Part 1 Modernism before World War I: the first Italian exposition of architecture
arte nuova - Turin 1902
Sant'Elia - from arte nuova to futurism
contextualism and the reasoned picturesque
a modern vernacular architecture. Part 2 Modernism between the wars: decorative novecento architecture
the birth of Italian rationalism
rationalist architecture - a contextual avant-garde
geometric novecento architecture. Part 3 Modernism and fascism: the rationalist discovery of fascism
imperial architecture for the fascist revolution - Rome 1924-1934
the Casa del Fascio, Como
the Eposizione Universale of 1942
the Danteum, Rome
Italian rationalism and anti-semitism.