Ecological economics is enabling economic and environmental historians to enhance their understanding of economic growth, by placing it in a broader perspective of biophysical interactions between nature and society. In this chapter, several ongoing researches and historical debates are examined from this standpoint such as the missing role of energy carriers in GDP growth, the socio-metabolic profiles of past and present societies, the pre-industrial 'Smithian' responses to 'Malthusian' traps, the role of efficient land-use in breeding livestock to increase agricultural yields, the reasons why the Industrial Revolution began in a high wage and cheap energy economy, the first globalization as a socio-metabolic watershed, and the question of whether there was a general crisis of biomass energies at the coming of fossil fuels era. Research discussing long-term socio-metabolic transitions may contribute to our understanding of how economic growth actually occurred, and which ecological impacts affected the Earth's life-support systems. Equally, these projects leave room for the institutional settings or ruling actors needed to explain why growth has happened and by whom. Far from naturalising history, the use of ecology in the explanation of human history historialises ecology.

This article examines how industrialization and demographic growth influenced the exploitation and management of water resources in Italian cities, during a crucial period of modernization of the urban system. First, it focuses on the functional crisis that growing demands for domestic and industrial use posed to traditional water collection and drainage methods. Second, it provides an analysis of the construction of new networks for urban water supply and removal and shows that changes to infrastructure were driven not only by hygienic concerns but also by the functional reorganization of the urban system. Finally, I argue that water management deeply transformed the ecology of the emerging modern city, since it resulted in the creation of a unitary and mechanized water circuit, in new forms of soil and water pollution, and in relations between cities and the territorial water system.

The de-legitimisation of the Italian political system that culminated in the upheavals of the late 1980s has permitted a very public re-examination of the meaning and significance of both the Fascist regime and the Resistance to it. Although debates between historians had already begun over these issues, they have been thrust into the media spotlight now that the political consensus surrounding their interpretation has collapsed. The following two articles examine both the content and conduct of these debates, and consider the extent to which they have contributed to a reassessment of the history of these periods. Naturally the opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the authors themselves: Contemporary European History would welcome further comments and contributions concerning this rethinking of the contemporary Italian experience.