Reconsidering the March on Rome

The aim of this article is to assess the role that Fascist representations of the March on Rome had in determining the overall direction of historical research on Fascism, and thus to understand why the violence practised during the days of the March has been neglected by both contemporaries and historians. The first part of the article examines the ways in which the March was seen by Fascists and anti-Fascists during the interwar years, when the Fascists were still in power. The second part considers historical interpretations of the March since the Second World War, in order to assess continuities and discontinuities within the historiography. The article ends by identifying the common ground shared by apparently discordant interpretations of the same event.