About

Bio

I am a Lecturer in History at Columbia University in New York.

My research focuses on social movements, political radicalism, and violence. I am particularly interested in the development of anti-systemic cultures, the logic of collective mobilization, and the mechanisms of radicalization. In my research, I also explore how policing of protest, counterterrorism, and legal militancy evolved historically. While adopting a transnational approach, my empirical focus is on Europe and the United States during the Cold War.

I wrote two books: Up Against the Law: Radical Lawyers and Social Movements, 1960s–1970s (UNC Press, 2022) investigates the engagement of militant attorneys and their extraordinary impact on social struggles in America; The Movement of 1977 in Italy (Carocci, 2015) surveys the most radical, creative, and violent leftist mobilization of postwar Italy. My publications also include several articles and essays on various aspects of contentious politics between the 1960s­ and the 1980s.

Currently, I am teaching three courses at Columbia University: Contentious Politics: Europe, 1960s–1970s; Political Violence in 20C. Europe; European Integration: History and Society.

Prior to joining Columbia, I have been Post-doctoral fellow at the Center for the United States and the Cold War, New York University; Research fellow at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy; and Post-doctoral fellow at Yale University’s Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence. I earned a Ph.D. in History at Sciences Po, Paris.

Full CV: falciola_cv