ABSTRACT
However hazardous it may be for an historian to suggest so predictive a view, the events of the first six months of 1993 appear to represent a truly rare occurrence in Italian history: a genuine turning-point. To justify this assertion, it is necessary to place it in the context of a more global interpretation than any so far put forward in this book. This risky venture is attempted in the following addition to and enlargement of the original text (completed late in 1992). It is to be hoped that, in 1994, hindsight will not make it necessary to warn the reader to ignore it.
