Christopher Duggan (1)Rezensionen

A good book to read before a trip to this island.

As the book's title implies, this is a concise history of Italy starting from the fall of Rome to the present day. The book is too concise on Italy's history before the 19th century but does provide a good, quick overview. The book is heavily weighted to the economic history of Italy and provides a many charts that illustrate the economics. Unfortunately, the Kindle edition makes these charts very difficult to read.

This excellent book is not so much a history of Italy as it is a history of the nation of Italy. As Christopher Duggan demonstrates, Italian nationalism was confined to a few intellectuals, artists and professionals, with regional identities predominant among the rest of the population. As a result, unification was superficial for much of the populace, who often found themselves at odds with the liberal state and forced to choose between this artificial link and their much deeper-seated loyalty to the Catholic Church. This approach helps make the appeal of Fascism much more understandable, with Duggan's analysis of this period one of the strongest points of this book. In the end, the reader is left with a deeper understanding of the problems Italy faces today, and perhaps as well a skepticism about the ability of Italians to address them in the future.

CAIXA HORIZONTAL PROVISORIA 2

A very collection of recollections in the form of mainly written testimony but also consisting of analysis of images of fascism as well. A very sociological point of view with regards to what happened in Mussolini's Italy. An important book for those wanting to understand politics in Italy both in the Second World War, & continuing to the present day. Good & recommended for those with an interest.

This is one of the better examinations I've read in regards to the rise of the fascist regime in Italy, which while lasting a generation seemed to have little obvious permanent impact. Choosing to examine the period through letters, diaries and the like, Duggan notes that the values Mussolini seemed to uphold were truly popular with wide swaths of Italian society: "...patriotism, the unity of the nation, the greatness of Rome, the legacy of the Risorgimento, the pursuit of empire, the nobility of Catholicism, the primacy of faith over materialism." Granted that these were the values of the patriotic well-to-do, it does seem clear that Mussolini also offered the promise of political involvement for masses of people who had been shut out of Italian governance; before reading this book I hadn't realized that less than 10% of the population of Italy was represented in the electorate. Finally, Duggan reminds his reader of how much Fascism was a product of World War I; a politics of young men who demanded that their sacrifices make a difference.

To put it another way, the rise of the Kingdom of Italy was about ceasing to be a victim of the other great powers. When that dream was broken in 1943 the rationale for Mussolini was broken; though Duggan's epilog suggests that the dream lies dormant, not dead.

The Force of Destiny is both a wonderful and a depressing book for who (like me) loves Italy. It is very well written and once you start you cannot stop reading. The book tells the story of Italy from 1796 when Napoleon easily overran the divided country, starting with Piemont, until the present days. One of the main topics is the inglorious unification of the country, where Garibaldi is about the only honest and honourable hero [see also Il Cimetero di Paga by Umberto Eco for some dirty details]. The scenes in the Italian Parliament were as mean, corrupt and disgusting as they are now from day one. Berlusconi has many earlier examples (though he is probably ahead of all of them with the instruments of power at his disposal) and Christopher Duggan makes it clear that there is nothing new in Italian politics of today.
An extract in the book from a famous article by the Neapolitan historian Pasquale Villari, published immediately after the disastrous war of 1866 could be written today:
“In the heart of the nation there lies an enemy more powerful than Austria: our colossal ignorance, the illiterate masses, the dumb bureaucrats, the stupid professors, the infantile politicians, the insufferable diplomats, he incompetent generals, the unskilled worker, the authoritarian farmer, and the rhetoric that eats our bones.”
You may wonder how this wonderful country is surviving for more than 150 years with governments, politicians and bureaucrats like this. Few other countries would be capable to accomplish this incredible fact.

Greci e cartaginesi: una presenza forte nelle origini e nell'orgoglio di molti siciliani.

2626 A Concise History of Italy, by Christopher Duggan (read 14 Jul 1994) I found this book exceptionally rewarding. maybe because I have not read a lot of Italian history. The book covers the period 1860 to the present more thoroughly than the prior time, but I found all periods covered exceptionally attention-holding. Italy has had a troubled time, and it today has political and crime problems of horrendous proportions. The book has nine chapters. Chapter 7, entitled "Giolotti, the First World War, and the Approach of Fascism" had an approach (1900 to 1922) which was new to me. I should read more Italian history.