Paul Anthony Ginsborg (18 July 1945 – 11 May 2022) was a British historian. In the 1980s, he was Professor at the

University of Siena The University of Siena ( it, Università degli Studi di Siena, abbreviation: UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy. Originally called ''Studium Senese'', the institution was founded in 1240 ...

; from 1992, he was Professor of Contemporary European History at the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

Education

Ginsborg studied at Queens' College, Cambridge (B.A. 1966). He was a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of Churchill College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

. With Pancho Pardi, he opposed Berlusconi justice "reforms", with the girotondi movement.

Law on Holocaust denial

Ginsborg was of Jewish parentage. Along with

Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born April 15, 1939) is an Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: '' The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an Ita ...

, Marcello Flores, Sergio Luzzatto,

Claudio Pavone Claudio Pavone (30 November 1920 – 29 November 2016) was an Italian historian and archivist. Pavone was the president of the Historic Institute of the Liberation movement in Italy, the president of the Italian Society of Contemporary History an ...

Enzo Traverso Enzo Traverso (born 14 October 1957) is an Italian scholar of European intellectual history. He is the author of several books on critical theory, the Holocaust, Marxism, memory, totalitarianism, revolution, and contemporary historiography. His bo ...

, etc., he signed a call in January 2002 against a law project, presented by Justice Minister

Clemente Mastella Mario Clemente Mastella (born 5 February 1947) is an Italian politician who has served as the mayor of Benevento since 20 June 2016. He is the leader of Union of Democrats for Europe, a minor centrist Italian party. He was Minister of Labour i ...

, which was to specifically penalize

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

. They argued that Italy's legislation was sufficient to cope with such acts. The amended law project finally restricted itself to reinforcing sentences concerning hate speech.Sous la pression des historiens, l’Italie renonce à pénaliser le négationnisme
, Human Rights League (LDH), 1 February 2007

Publications

*''Daniele Manin e la rivoluzione veneziana del 1848-49'', Milano, Feltrinelli, 1978; Torino, Einaudi, 2007. . *''Storia d'Italia dal dopoguerra a oggi. Società e politica 1943-1988'', 2 voll., Torino, Einaudi, 1989. ; Milano, Einaudi scuola, 1996. .(In English: A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988, Macmillan 2003). *''Dialogo su Berlinguer'', con

Massimo D'Alema Massimo D'Alema (; born 20 April 1949) is an Italian politician and journalist who was the 53rd prime minister of Italy from 1998 to 2000. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2008. D'Alema also serv ...

, Firenze, Giunti, 1994. . *''Stato dell'Italia'', a cura di, Milano, Il saggiatore-B. Mondadori, 1994. . *''Le virtù della Repubblica. Conversazione a Formia'', a cura di, Milano, Il saggiatore, 1994. . *''Enti locali, società civile e famiglia nell'educazione in Toscana'', a cura di e con Dario Ragazzini e Gastone Tassinari, Firenze, Edizioni Regione Toscana, 1996. *''L'Italia del tempo presente. Famiglia, società civile, Stato 1980-1996'', Torino, Einaudi, 1998. . *''Storia d'Italia 1943-1996. Famiglia, società, Stato'', Torino, Einaudi, 1998. . *''Un'Italia minore. Famiglia, istruzione e tradizioni civiche in Valdelsa'', a cura di e con Francesco Ramella, Firenze, Giunti, 1999. . *''Italy and its Discontents 1980-2001'', Penguin, 2001. *''Berlusconi. Ambizioni patrimoniali in una democrazia mediatica'', Torino, Einaudi, 2003. . *''Il tempo di cambiare. Politica e potere della vita quotidiana'', Torino, Einaudi, 2004. . *''La democrazia che non c'è'', Torino, Einaudi, 2006. . *''Storia d'Italia. Annali'', XXII, ''Il Risorgimento'', a cura di e con Alberto Mario Banti, Torino, Einaudi, 2007. . *''Salviamo l'Italia'', Torino, Einaudi, 2010. . *''Berlusconismo. Analisi di un sistema di potere'', a cura di e con Enrica Asquer, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011. . *''Passions and Politics'', with Sergio Labate ( Polity, 2019).

References

External links

Contributor page
at '' London Review of Books'' 1945 births 2022 deaths British Jews British historians Jewish historians Academic staff of the University of Florence Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge {{Italy-historian-stub