Book Review: The Italian

While he curiously projects a pluralist Marxist reading of Tunisia via Zina, he seems to miss the point that the crisis of the left in the late 1980s had to do with the disillusionment with Soviet-type socialism rather than the failure to adopt a neo-Marxist approach. [...] How- ever, despite the impact of the collapse of socialism, most militants of the left in Tunisia chose to confront the oppressive apparatus of the neoliberal regime. [...] In The Italian, Al-Mabkhout dismisses the impact of the international order on Tunisia and proposes a surreal reading of the late 1980s; he critiques the role of the radical left by referring to the passive role of the PCT (1956–93) in the aftermath of the November coup. [...] The deployment of Zina as a represen- tative of an eclectic Marxism, characteristically Eurocommunist, reduces the accuracy of the narrative of The Italian. [...] The use of Abdennaser (as well as Zina) to articulate the fallibility of the Marxist project amounts to an abuse of Tunisia’s political historiography.