Paul Baxa is professor of history at Ave Maria University in Florida. Parts of his most recent book, Motorsport and Fascism: Living Dangerously (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) have been presented at past Argetsinger Symposia. He was privileged to have presented at the first symposium in 2015.
The 1940 Mille Miglia is an anomaly in the long history of the race. The previous classic editions, held between 1927 and 1938, were run on the thousand-mile figure-of-eight open road course covering half of Italy. During that time, it had become Italy’s most important motor race and one that was exploited by Mussolini’s Fascist regime. After a major tragedy in 1938, the race was reinvented in 1940 and bore scant resemblance to the original. This paper examines how the race was used by the regime to exalt the Axis alliance while at the same time making great efforts to link it to its more illustrious preceding editions.
The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), partnering with the Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), presents the Seventh Annual Michael R. Argetsinger Symposium on International Motor Racing History. The Symposium established itself as a unique and respected scholarly forum and has gained a growing audience of students and enthusiasts. It provides an opportunity for scholars, researchers and writers to present their work related to the history of automotive competition and the cultural impact of motor racing. Papers are presented by faculty members, graduate students and independent researchers.
The history of international automotive competition falls within several realms, all of which are welcomed as topics for presentations, including, but not limited to: sports history, cultural studies, public history, political history, the history of technology, sports geography and gender studies, as well as archival studies.