Taranto’s steelworks hold a particularly important place in the history of Italy’s industrialization, and has been the object of numerous studies. This article examines some recent publications on Taranto’s steelworks and, more broadly, on the history of Italian Stateowned firms and Iri. The aim is to provide some reflections on the role of the steel industry in the Italian economy, on the experience of State-owned enterprises and their relations with politics, on the policies pursued after the Second World War in order to reduce the gap between the North and the South of the country. Public debates on these topics are also taken into consideration. The article contextualizes the decisions that were made and the different positions that were taken, and argues that this story raises a series of questions that still have
no answer.