Nico Perrone

Interesting short book, as while the title make you think that it is yet another biography of Enrico Mattei, in reality it focuses mainly to on his foreign affairs initiatives and his impact on the Italian industrialization post-WWII, in Italy and abroad, including the impact of ENI companies on export of IPR (e.g. the roles of Nuovo Pignone and Saipem), as well as new partnership agreements with oil producing countries.

This book therefore can complement Di Nolfo's "Storia delle Relazioni Internazionali 1918-1992" https://www.librarything.com/work/5588235/book/79481697, published in 1994, focusing on Italy but with limited space for the "background dealings" of a period, late 1940s-early 1960s, that was pivotal for the industrialization of Italy.

I read this book after reading a short collection of speeches from Mattei, including his last, delivered shortly before his plane disappeared, https://www.librarything.com/work/23977651/book/176207518 (I posted a review on that too).

Some of the material quoted by the author would be interesting to read, but is not so easy to access, and therefore this short book (166 pages including bibliographical notes) is probably useful also as a reference for further studies.

For non-Italians, it could be interesting to read this book along with Andreotti's "Governare con la crisi" https://www.librarything.com/work/12177985/book/82044502, published in 1991, where the late former President del Consiglio dei Ministri does something similar to Kissinger's "White House Years", and discusses Italian governments from the 1940s until the late 1980s.… (mehr)