The Failure of Italian Nationhood : The Geopolitics of a Troubled Identity

This book provides a political, economic, sociological, and cultural history of Italy that looks at its difficulties with the task of nation-building. This book explains Italy's endless political instability and its historical, cultural and economic roots. It also illustrates why, even after the creation of the Italian state, Italy was never really unified. Piero Gobetti described fascism once as the "autobiography" of the Italian nation. This book explains why today it is possible to describe "berlusconism"--A cultural, political and social phenomenon in Italy- as the most recent version of this country's autobiography Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction....Pages 1-11 Foreword: The “Original Sin”....Pages 13-24 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 How Premature Development Became a Factor of Backwardness....Pages 27-33 The Phantom Nation....Pages 35-41 The Northern Question....Pages 43-47 Inventing Ancestors....Pages 49-53 The Unhappy Consciousness of Italian Development....Pages 55-60 A Culture without a Nation....Pages 61-67 The Difficult Italianization of the Piedmont....Pages 69-73 The Difficult Piedmontization of Italy....Pages 75-79 The Moderate Social Bloc....Pages 81-87 Front Matter....Pages 89-89 Transformism....Pages 91-97 Internationalization Crises and Transformism....Pages 99-103 Emerging Sectors and Transformism....Pages 105-110 The Southern Question....Pages 111-118 Front Matter....Pages 119-119 A Counter-Reformist Identity....Pages 121-127 A Civil “Guelph” Religion....Pages 129-135 The Quest for a Civil Italian Religion....Pages 137-143 A Petit-Bourgeois Fatherland....Pages 145-151 A Country of Limited Sovereignty....Pages 153-160 Front Matter....Pages 119-119 Identity and Development....Pages 161-166 The Failure of “Democratic Nationalization”....Pages 167-175 Italian Metamorphoses....Pages 177-182 Between Europe and the Mediterranean....Pages 183-189 The Internationalization Crisis of the 1990s....Pages 191-197 Conclusion....Pages 199-201 Back Matter....Pages 203-264 "Silvio Berlusconi's Italy is heir to a long and convoluted history. Manlio Graziano navigates nimbly through this labyrinth and suggests why the country has again fallen easy victim to weak government and feeble institutions."--David Willey, BBC Rome Correspondent "This is a rich and erudite book. It makes an important and interdisciplinary contribution to the debate on 'the absence of an Italian nation' on which it builds and carries forward. Manlio Graziano has managed to weave a thick and rich cloth on which he has also set various shiny pearls."--Osvaldo Croci, Professor, Department of Political Science, Memorial University, Canada "A very informative and enlightening study about a country often discussed, rarely understood."--Sergio Romano, historian, columnist, and author of Vademecum di storia dell'Italia unita "Manlio Graziano lucidly diagnoses the problem of Italian national identity as both anomalous and inextricably rooted in its European context. His fluent and richly informed book has important implications for our broader understanding of nationhood in a globalized world." - Francis X. Rocca, Vatican Correspondent, Religion News Service "Here you learn how a failed State may last at least 150 years." - Lucio Caracciolo, Editor of Limes: Italian Review of Geopolitics and Heartland: Eurasian Review of Geopolitics This book explains Italy s endless political instability and its historical, cultural and economic roots. It also illustrates why, even after the creation of the Italian state, Italy was never really unified. Piero Gobetti described fascism once as the "autobiography" of the Italian nation. This book explains why today it is possible to describe "berlusconism" - a cultural, political and social phenomenon in Italy- as the most recent version of this country s autobiography. This book explains Italy's endless political instability and its historical, cultural and economic roots. It also illustrates why, even after the creation of the Italian state, Italy was never really unified. It describes fascism once as the "autobiography" of the Italian nation. It explains why today it is possible to describe "berlusconism" -- a cultural, political and social phenomenon in Italy -- as the most recent version of this country's autobiography