How Italy Spawned the Western Far Right

Foreign Policy · Michele Barbero · 2026-10-09 18:20 UTC

A longtime Rome correspondent reflects on the political trends in his adopted home.

A longtime Rome correspondent reflects on the political trends in his adopted home.

To tourists or casual observers, Italy might appear to be one giant museum—brimming with beautiful art but somewhat stuck in the past—that plays only a marginal role in global affairs. A new book by Jason Horowitz, an American journalist who spent much of the last quarter century in Italy, paints a different picture: of a nation that has served as a laboratory for political trends that spread across Europe and the United States.

After learning the ropes of journalism in Rome working for a variety of news outlets, Horowitz married the daughter of an Italian diplomat, then later spent nearly a decade as the New York Times’ Rome bureau chief (when he finally went “native,” as he puts it, becoming an Italian citizen). His memoir, The Italian Job, reads both as a reflection on his personal and professional experiences in the country and on its recent political history.

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