Twenty years ago, as the G8 summit began in Genoa, the Italian left thought that the future was only just beginning. The slogan “Another world is possible” was taken up by young political novices and older militants who had fought a thousand lost battles; it heralded a radical transformation, finally within reach.

Already in 1999, protests at the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle had challenged the global order of neoliberal governance in the heart of the Western empire. There was a further explosion at the G7 summit in Washington in 2000, and in January 2001, the first World Social Forum was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

In Italy, as the Genoa summit approached, the radical left was already rather divided, but it still enjoyed about 10 percent support and seemed to be growing. Its demands were sometimes able to influence the center-left, and its component forces helped to shape public debate on labor, the environment, and social rights.