Born in 1964 in Pavia, where he obtained his maturità at the Liceo Classico “Ugo Foscolo”, Max Guderzo graduated in Political Science at the Faculty “Cesare Alfieri” in Florence in 1989. After obtaining a Doctorate in the History of International Relations in 1994, he was Associate and then Full Professor of that discipline at the University of Urbino (1998-2004). Later he moved to Florence, where he taught until 2017, getting also a “Jean Monnet” Chair in the History of European Unification co-financed by the European Commission, as earlier in Urbino.
On 1 September 2017, he began to work at the University of Siena where he chaired the Steering Committee of the “Laurea Magistrale” (Master Level) in International Sciences (2018-24) and now chairs the Council of the Law and Political Science Library “Circolo Giuridico”.
After his first short essays on Italian anti-fascism (“Giustizia e Libertà” a Pavia negli anni trenta, The “Justice and Freedom” Movement in Pavia in the 1930s, 1983) and British decolonisation in Africa (L’indipendenza del Ghana, Ghana's Independence, 1991) he has written books on Spain’s neutrality in World War II (Madrid e l’arte della diplomazia, Madrid and the Art of Diplomacy, 1995), the attitude of the United States towards European integration in the 1960s (Interesse nazionale e responsabilità globale, National Interest and Global Responsibility, 2000) and US relations with Latin America in the Carter years (Ordine mondiale e buon vicinato, World Order and Good Neighbor Policy, 2012).
He has co-edited and edited interdisciplinary books on raw materials and the international system (Diplomazia delle risorse, Resources Diplomacy, 2004; Russian ed., Diplomatija resursov, 2008), EEC/EU enlargement (2004: l’allargamento dell’Unione europea, 2004: The Enlargement of the European Union, 2005), Spain in the last years of the Franco regime (L’ultimo franchismo, The Final Phase of Francoism, 2009), the international system in 1975-85 (The Globalization of the Cold War, 2010), EEC/EU “foreign policies” (The External Relations of the European Union, 2015), current issues in international history (Nuove questioni di Storia delle relazioni internazionali. Studi in onore di Ennio Di Nolfo, New Issues in History of International Relations. Essays in Honour of Ennio Di Nolfo, 2015), the euro (A Monetary Hope for Europe, 2016), the beginning of Donald Trump’s second US presidency (Il mondo al tempo del secondo Trump: memoria, incertezza, speranza, The World and Trump II: Memory, Uncertainty, Hope, 2025) and the transformations of the international system since the end of the Cold War (Navigando a vista. Disordine mondiale e aree di crisi dalla fine della guerra fredda ai nostri giorni, Sailing by Sight: Global Disorder and Crisis Areas from the End of the Cold War to the Present Day, 2025).
He is currently working on US foreign policy, European integration, Spanish, Latin American and Italian issues: further info in the “Curriculum Vitae” in English and the “Journal of scientific and teaching activities” in Italian on this webpage and in the “Curriculum Vitae” (2018-25) in Italian on https://docenti.unisi.it/it/guderzo.
