Industrializzare «l’osso»: l’intervento della Cassa per il Mezzogiorno in Basilicata (1955-1973)

Following the Big Push Model, the protagonists of the season of extraordi- nary intervention in the Southern Italy set as a basic condition for the develop- ment of the entire macro-area the breaking of the isolation of some areas which, historically and geographically, were far from the center of the economic system and the most productive areas. Basilicata was the region of Southern Italy which, in certain aspects, fully fell within the concept of «bone» of the analysis pro- posed by Rossi Doria, and for this reason it appeared to be the most isolated. After the infrastructural phase of the CasMez, Basilicata was also affected by an industrialization plan which was supposed to raise the productivity index of the territory and avoid further socio-economic imbalances with the rest of the coun- try first and foremost, and then with the remaining part of the South. This re- search, using archival sources present in the ASET archive of the Central State Archives, offers a reconstruction of the intervention of the Cassa per il Mezzo- giorno in Basilicata in its industrialist phase, as well as an analysis of the results obtained.