The “new” view of southern history is in Robert Lumley and Jonathan Morris (eds.), The New History of the Italian South: The Mezzogiorno Revisited (1997); and Piero Bevilacqua, Breve storia dell’Italia meridionale: dall’Ottocento a oggi (1993), which has been described as a manifesto for the new southern historians. Among the many interesting publications on the south is Marta Petrusewicz, Latifundium: Moral Economy and Material Life in a European Periphery (1996; originally published in Italian, 1989). Other work includes John Dickie, Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860-1900 (1999), an important study; and Silvana Patriarca, Numbers and Nationhood: Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Italy (1996). Frank M.Snowden, Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884-1911 (1995), is a marvelous and original work.
A collection of essays on the role of the family is David I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller (eds.), The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present (1991).
Discussion on the left is in David I. Kertzer, Comrades and Christians: Religion and Political Struggle in Communist Italy (1980, reissued with changes, 1990), and Politics & Symbols: The Italian Communist Party and the Fall of Communism (1996). Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson, and Michalina Vaughan (eds.), Neo-fascism in Europe (1991), deals with the far right.
On the Mafia and organized crime, particularly noteworthy are Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection, (1993; originally published in Italian, 1992) and Henner Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi (1973, reissued 1998; originally published in German, 1970); and Giovanni Falcone and Marcelle Padovani, Men of Honour (1992; originally published in Italian, 1991). Dramatic developments of the 1980s and ’90s are detailed in Alexander Stille, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (1995). Renate Siebert, Secrets of Life and Death: Women and the Mafia (1996; originally published in Italian, 1994), is a fascinating study of a little-known aspect of this subject. Regional studies include Tom Behan, The Camorra (1996); and James Walston, The Mafia and Clientelism: Roads to Rome in Post-war Calabria (1988). P.A.Allum, Politics and Society in Post-war Naples (1973), remains a prescient and classic account of urban life and political corruption. An evocative account of the 1990s can be found in Peter Robb, Midnight in Sicily (1996).
The student and worker movements of recent decades are discussed in Robert Lumley, States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978 (1990), a local study (of Milan) with general relevance; and Sidney Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975 (1989). Interviews of movement participants are used to illuminate the field of oral history in Alessandro Portelli, The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue (1997). The feminist perspective may be seen in Luisa Passerini, Autobiography of a Generation: Italy, 1968 (1996; first published in Italian, 1988); and Judith Adler Hellman, Journeys Among Women: Feminism in Five Italian Cities (1987).
Trade unions and labour problems are discussed in Miriam Golden, Labor Divided: Austerity and Working-Class Politics in Contemporary Italy (1988); and Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy (1995).
Cultural history, which has become a key part of the bibliography on Italy, is dealt with in David Forgacs, Italian Culture in the Industrial Era, 1880–1980: Cultural Industries, Politics, and the Public (1990); David Forgacs and Robert Lumley (eds.), Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction (1996); Robert Lumley (compiler), Italian Journalism: A Critical Anthology (1996); Zygmunt G. Barański and Robert Lumley, Culture and Conflict in Postwar Italy: Essays on Mass and Popular Culture (1990); John Foot, Milan Since the Miracle: City, Culture, and Identity (2001); and Gino Moliterno (ed.), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Italian Culture (2000).
The best studies of terrorism in the 1970s are David Moss, The Politics of Left-Wing Violence in Italy, 1969–85 (1989); and Raimondo Catanzaro (ed.), The Red Brigades and Left-Wing Terrorism in Italy (1991). Leonardo Sciascia, The Moro Affair, trans. from Italian by Sacha Rabinovitch, extended ed. (2002; originally published as The Moro Affair; and, The Mystery of Majorana, 1987), is a biting account of one if Italy’s great mysteries.
Coverage of the 1980s and post-1992 crisis is in Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Neanetti (eds.), Italian Politics: A Review, an excellent yearbook; Stephen Gundle and Simon Parker (eds.), The New Italian Republic: From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi (1996); Martin Bull and Martin Rhodes, Crisis and Transition in Italian Politics (1997); Vittorio Bufacchi and Simon Burgess, Italy Since 1989: Events and Interpretations (1998); and a special issue of Modern Italy: Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy, “The Italian Crisis, 1989–1994,” vol. 1, no. 1 (1995). Patrick McCarthy, The Crisis of the Italian State (1997), is a very useful one-volume account. Two other useful studies are Donald Martin Carter, States of Grace: Senegalese in Italy and the New European Immigration (1997); and Jeffrey Cole, The New Racism in Europe: A Sicilian Ethnography (1997). Donna R. Gabaccia, Italy’s Many Diasporas (2000), looks at the Italian world community in historical perspective. On the Berlusconi government, see Paul Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: Television, Power, and Patrimony, 2nd ed. (2005); Geoff Andrews, Not a Normal Country: Italy After Berlusconi (2005); and David Lane, Berlusconi’s Shadow: Crime, Justice, and the Pursuit of Power (2005). Russell L. King Melanie F. Knights Martin Clark John Foot
Italy
ancient Roman territory, Italy
Alternative Title: Italia
Italy, Latin Italia, in Roman antiquity, the Italian Peninsula from the Apennines in the north to the “boot” in the south. In 42 bc Cisalpine Gaul, north of the Apennines, was added; and in the late 3rd century ad Italy came to include the islands of Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia, as well as Raetia and part of Pannonia to the north.
The first major power in the peninsula was the Etruscans. From Etruria, Etruscan power spread northward to the Po River valley and southward to Campania, but it later collapsed to Etruria itself. Where the Etruscans failed, the people of Rome gradually succeeded in the task of unifying the various Italian peoples into a political whole. By 264 bc all Italy south of Cisalpine Gaul was united under the leadership of Rome in a confederacy; its members were either incorporated in or allied with the Roman state. The status of the allies gradually changed until after the Italian, or Social, War (i.e., the war of the socii, or allies) of 90 bc, when Roman citizenship was extended to all Italy. But political unification was achieved more quickly than was sentimental unity: Romans and Italici did not immediately coalesce into a nation. Cicero might talk of tota Italia, but Italy was not finally united in spirit until the time of Augustus, and Romanization was still slower in superseding local differences. In the meantime Cisalpine Gaul, which had received Roman citizenship in stages, was incorporated into Italy in 42 bc.