A History of Modern Italy: Transformation and Continuity, 1796 to the Present [Paperback]

A History of Modern Italyaddresses the question of how Italy's modern history--from its prolonged process of nation-building in the nineteenth century to the crises of the last two decades--has produced a paradoxical blend of hyper-modernity and traditionalism that sets the country apart in the broader context of Western Europe.

Author Anthony L. Cardoza explores how Italians have experienced seismic shifts in their social and economic landscape over the past two centuries, while simultaneously maintaining older cultural norms, social practices, and political methods. The book's narrative of modern Italy incorporates and blends the research findings and methodological insights of the new quantitative and cultural historical scholarship of the past twenty-five years. In doing so, the book chronicles the regime changes that have taken the country from a liberal monarchy, through a fascist dictatorship, to a democratic republic while also delving into the economic and social history of the nation through these periods.

Preface
Acknowledgements
About the Author

CHAPTER 1. THE ITALIAN PENINSULA IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From the Center to the Margins of Europe
Land of a Thousand Bell Towers
Roman Catholicism and the Italian Church
The Italian Enlightenment and the Old Regimes'
Italy in the 1790s

CHAPTER 2. BIRTH OF A NATIONAL IDEA: 1796-1850

Catalysts of Change: Napoleon and the French Revolution
The Cultural Roots of the Italian Nation
Giuseppe Mazzini and Romantic Nationalism
Moderate Liberal Nationalism
1848 and the Limits of Popular National Mobilization

CHAPTER 3. A PERFECT STORM: ITALIAN UNIFICATION, 1850-1871

Camillo di Cavour and Piedmontese Liberalism
Cavour, Piedmont and Italian Unification
The Mazzinian Moment: Giuseppe Garibaldi and the South
Completing the Nation State: 1861-1870
Legacies of a Perlc1