Why do you think there was so little agreement over what happened and why it happened?
There are various reasons, the key one is that the state didn't have the legitimacy in the eyes of the people to impose one version of events. It's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way, because if you have a debate over the past, it is a good thing, if you just have one version of the past, it's quite boring, and can be quite worrying! Another issue is that Italy has had lots of civil wars, such as during the Second World War. During civil wars, for example, in Spain, you tend to have very radical divisions of the past because it was people from the same country fighting each other, and therefore it's very difficult to get agreement over how to remember civil war because you'll have two sides. Not only do they not agree about killing each other, but they are quite radically different in general.
Do you think that the divided opinion had any major consequences, good or bad, in Italian society?
Well it's been very difficult to create consensus over either the nation or the past or the future, and that in some ways is negative, in other ways it's interesting because you have a debate, a democratic debate over the past. So I think it's neither positive nor negative, it depends, sometimes it has sort of farcical outcomes, such as two monuments with the same national events or different versions of events. It's particularly problematic in the 60's and 70's because you don't get closure, and so these things carry on festering for fifty, sixty, or seventy years. But that's not just the fault of Italians, it's also the fault of, for example, the justice system which doesn't come to a clear decision, and therefore leaves open lots of possibilities.
What made you move your research onto the history of Italian sport, namely cycling?
Well I did a lot of work on football as well. I think that sport is a very good way of understanding the society, politics, history and culture. Just think of Berlusconi - who also owns a football team. Just think of the way the fascists used football and the importance of cycling in the post-war period. So, these are books not really about sport but about the way that sport interacts with history, culture, politics, and society. That's what interests me about sport; I am interested in sport itself but I am also interested in the way it interacts. And you get great stories as well; it's a way of approaching history which is not dry or academic. One can touch into all kinds of things that people are interested in in everyday life.