‘Il Giornalino’ di Prezzolini. La lingua italiana tra promozione e propaganda nella New York degli anni ’30 e ’40, by R. Dolci, Florence, Franco Cesati Editore, 2018, 253 pp.

Between 1934 and 1943 a monthly magazine for Italian language teachers and students was published in the USA. Its dual purpose was to allow the school-age children of Italian emigrants to learn and speak the language of their ancestors and to maintain cultural contacts with Italy. It was called "Il Giornalino" and was conceived and directed by Giuseppe Prezzolini, journalist, writer, philosopher, eclectic intellectual and, above all, great cultural organizer, as demonstrated by two previous publishing enterprises he embarked on in Italy in the early 1900s, "Leonardo" and "La Voce", with both of which the country’s cultural elite had collaborated. Prezzolini directed "Il Giornalino" from his position as director of the Casa Italiana at Columbia University, in New York, an institution that aimed at promoting Italian culture in America in a period described by the fascist government as the ‘new Italian Renaissance’.