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ItalyArticle Free Pass
- The people
- An overview
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
- Resources and power
- Services and tourism
- Labour and taxation
- Transportation and telecommunications
- Government and society
- Cultural life
- Italy in the early Middle Ages
- The late Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths
- Lombards and Byzantines
- Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy, 774–962
- Literature and art
- Economy and society
- Italy, 962–1300
- Italy under the Saxon emperors
- The reform movement and the Salian emperors
- The age of the Hohenstaufen
- Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa)
- Economic and cultural developments
- Henry VI
- Otto IV
- Frederick II
- The factors shaping political factions
- The end of Hohenstaufen rule
- Economic developments
- Cultural developments
- Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries
- Characteristics of the period
- Italy to c. 1380
- Italy from c. 1380 to c. 1500
- The early Italian Renaissance
- Early modern Italy (16th to 18th centuries)
- From the 1490s through the 17th-century crisis
- French and Spanish rivalries after 1494
- The age of Charles V
- Spanish Italy
- Culture and society
- Society and economy
- The 17th-century crisis
- Reform and Enlightenment in the 18th century
- From the 1490s through the 17th-century crisis
- Revolution, restoration, and unification
- The French revolutionary period
- The restoration period
- Italy from 1870 to 1945
- Developments from 1870 to 1914
- World War I and fascism
- War and its aftermath
- The Fascist era
- World War II
- Italy since 1945
- The first decades after World War II
- Italy from the 1960s
- Demographic and social change
- Economic stagnation and labour militancy in the 1960s and ’70s
- Student protest and social movements, 1960s–1980s
- Politics in the 1970s and ’80s
- Regional government
- The economy in the 1980s
- The fight against organized crime
- Italy at the turn of the 21st century
- Italy in the early Middle Ages
Comprehensive descriptions of many geographic aspects of the country are found in Mario Pinna and Domenico Ruocco (eds.), Italy: A Geographical Survey (1980). Rinn S. Shinn (ed.), Italy: A Country Study, 2nd ed. (1987), is a comprehensive survey of both the geography and the history of the country.
National, social, and demographic characteristics of the country, with a look at regional differences, are discussed in David Willey, Italians (1984); William Murray, The Last Italian: Portrait of a People (1991); and David I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller (eds.), The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present (1991). Other works include John Agnew, Place and Politics in Modern Italy (2002); and Tobias Jones, The Dark Heart of Italy, rev. ed. (2007).
Broad surveys are offered in Peter Groenewegen and Joseph Halevi (eds.), Italian Economics Past and Present (1983); and Russell King, Italy (1987). Russell King, The Industrial Geography of Italy (1985) analyzes the location of industries. Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Growth and Territorial Policies: The Italian Model of Social Capitalism (1988), focuses on regional disparities and the role of local government in economic development. Alan B. Mountjoy, The Mezzogiorno, 2nd ed. (1982), briefly reviews economic conditions in southern Italy. Other special studies are Pino Arlacchi, Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. by Martin Ryle (1986; originally published in Italian, 1983); Peter Lange and Marino Regini (eds.), State, Market, and Social Regulation: New Perspectives on Italy (1989; originally published in Italian, 1987); F. Pyke, G. Becattini, and W. Sengenberger (eds.), Industrial Districts and Inter-Firm Co-operation in Italy (1990); and Vera Zamagni, The Economic History of Italy, 1860–1990 (1993).
Government and society
Comprehensive historical introductions to political institutions and processes are presented in Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (1990, reissued 2003), and Italy and its Discontents: Family, Civil Society, State, 1980–2001 (2003); Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser, Italy: A Difficult Democracy (1986); and Joseph LaPalombara, Democracy, Italian Style (1987). Useful insights into the machinations of the power system are provided in Alan Friedman, Agnelli and the Network of Italian Power (1988). The dynamics of various political forces are the subject of Paolo Farneti, The Italian Party System (1945–1980), ed. by S.E. Finer and Alfio Mastropaolo (1985); Geoffrey Pridham, The Nature of the Italian Party System: A Regional Case Study (1981); Grant Amyot, The Italian Communist Party: The Crisis of the Popular Front Strategy (1981); and Judith Chubb, Patronage, Power, and Poverty in Southern Italy: A Tale of Two Cities (1982). A full analysis of the political, social, and economic crisis of the 1970s and the radical transformations that resulted from it is found in Sidney Tarrow, Democracy and Disorder: Protest and Politics in Italy, 1965–1975 (1989).
Anna Laura Lepschy and Giulio Lepschy, The Italian Language Today, 2nd ed. (1988, reissued 1992), offers a survey of modern Italian and its dialects. A well-illustrated discussion of popular culture and social customs, with a look at rustic decoration and ornament, is found in Catherine Sabino, Italian Country, rev. ed. (1995). David Forgacs, Italian Culture in the Industrial Era, 1880–1980: Cultural Industries, Politics, and the Public (1990), is a history of popular culture and politico-cultural dynamics. John Julius Norwich (ed.), The Italians: History, Art, and the Genius of a People (also published as The Italian World, 1983, reprinted 1989), surveys developments from Roman times to the 20th century. James Hall, A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art (1983, reissued 1995), traces the inspiration behind Italian art from Etruscan times. Italy’s contribution to modern motion pictures is examined in Peter Bondanella, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present, 3rd ed. (2001).
A comprehensive survey of Italian history is Reinhold Schumann, Italy in the Last Fifteen Hundred Years: A Concise History, 2nd ed. (1992). A good compendium is George Holmes, The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy (2001).
Italy in the early Middle Ages
Comprehensive discussions of medieval Italy are provided in the first three volumes of The Cambridge Medieval History: The Christian Roman Empire and the Foundation of the Teutonic Kingdoms, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1924, reprinted 1967); The Rise of the Saracens and the Foundation of the Western Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (1924, reissued 1967); and Germany and the Western Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 3 (1924, reissued 1968). Giovanni Tabacco, The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule, trans. by Rosalind Brown Jensen (1989; originally published in Italian, 1979), is a major survey of sociopolitical history. Also of interest is Chris Wickham, Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400–1000 (1981, reissued 1989).
Specific political and social topics of early periods are studied in A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 2 vol. (1964, reprinted 1986); T.S. Brown, Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D. 554–800 (1984); Thomas F.X. Noble, The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (1984); and Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (1991). Chris Wickham, The Mountains and the City: The Tuscan Appennines in the Early Middle Ages (1988), is a regional study. Socioeconomic analyses include Bryan Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy, AD 300–850 (1984); and appropriate articles in Richard Hodges and Brian Hobley (eds.), The Rebirth of Towns in the West, AD 700–1050 (1988). The art of this period is examined by Richard Krautheimer, Rome, Profile of a City, 312–1308 (1980, reissued 2000); and Richard Hodges and John Mitchell (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Archaeology, Art, and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery (1985).
The High Middle Ages, 962–1300
Works embracing the whole period include Contest of Empire and Papacy, 2nd ed. (1924, reissued 1968), vol. 5 of The Cambridge Medieval History; and Chiara Frugoni, A Distant City: Images of Urban Experience in the Medieval World, trans by William McCuaig (1991; originally published in Italian, 1983). The reform era is studied in Uta-Renate Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (1988, reissued 1991; originally published in German, 1982). The role of medieval Italy in Mediterranean commerce is examined in David Abulafia, Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, 1100–1400 (1987); and Gerald W. Day, Genoa’s Response to Byzantium, 1155–1204: Commercial Expansion and Factionalism in a Medieval City (1988).
Examinations of social and cultural life in the 12th and 13th centuries include Lester K. Little, Liberty, Charity, Fraternity: Lay Religious Confraternities at Bergamo in the Age of the Commune, ed. by Sandro Buzzetti (1988); James M. Powell, Albertanus of Brescia: The Pursuit of Happiness in the Early Thirteenth Century (1992); and Albert Rabil, Jr. (ed.), Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, Humanism in Italy, vol. 1 (1988).
A broad comparative analysis of the communes is presented in Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy (1979, reissued 2002); and Daniel Waley, The Italian City-Republics, 3rd ed. (1988). Histories of individual city-states include George W. Dameron, Episcopal Power and Florentine Society, 1000–1320 (1991); Robert Brentano, Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-Century Rome (1974, reissued 1990); and Frederick C. Lane, Venice, a Maritime Republic (1973, reissued 1991).
The Papal States are addressed in Peter Partner, The Lands of St. Peter; The Papal State in the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (1972). The history of the kingdom of Sicily is explored in Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343 (1982, reissued 1999); and Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (1992).
Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries
General outlines of the period, together with references to important works in Italian and other languages, are to be found in Denys Hay and John Law, Italy in the Age of the Renaissance, 1380–1530 (1989). An excellent work of reference is J.R. Hale (ed.), A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance (1981). Wallace Klippert Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (1948, reprinted 1981), is useful for periodization.
Works that consider the social background of high culture are George Holmes, Florence, Rome, and the Origins of the Renaissance (1986, reissued 1988), and The Florentine Enlightenment, 1400–50 (1969, reissued 1992). Influential discussions of the subject are Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanistic Strains (1961, reprinted 1980), and Renaissance Thought and the Arts, expanded ed. (1990; originally published as Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts, 1965). The artist in society is discussed by Martin Wackernagel, The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist: Projects and Patrons, Workshop and Art Market, trans. by Alison Luchs (1938, reissued 1981; originally published in German, 1938); and Bruce Cole, The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian (1983).
Most writings in English have concentrated on the republics. Valuable works on the great Tuscan city of Florence are Gene A. Brucker, Renaissance Florence (1969, reissued 1994); Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (1980, reissued 1991); Richard A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History (1980, reissued 1990); John N. Najemy, Corporatism and Consensus in Florentine Electoral Politics, 1280–1400 (1982); David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427 (1985; originally published in French, 1978); and, on the great ruling family, J.R. Hale, Florence and the Medici: The Pattern of Control, new ed. (2001).
Interesting contributions on the Serenissima are in Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice (1980); and Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (1981, reissued 1986).
The Papal States are treated in the work by Partner cited above (in the section on the High Middle Ages); and studies of its signori include Trevor Dean, Land and Power in Late Medieval Ferrara: The Rule of the Este, 1350–1450 (1988, reissued 2002). Works on the southern kingdoms include Denis Mack Smith, Medieval Sicily, 800–1713 (1968, reprinted 1988), vol. 1 of A History of Sicily.
Early modern Italy (16th–18th centuries)
Two magisterial works frame this period in its European perspective: Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, translated from French by Siân Reynolds, 2nd rev. ed., 2 vol. (1966, reissued 1995); and Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore (1969– ), with English translations of 2 vol., The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1768–1776: The First Crisis (1989) and The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776–1789, 2 parts (1990–91).
General surveys of the period include Eric Cochrane, Italy 1530–1630, ed. by Julius Kirshner (1988); and Dino Carpanetto and Giuseppe Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason, 1685–1789, translated from Italian by Caroline Higgitt (1987). Other studies are Stuart Woolf, A History of Italy, 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change (1979, reissued 1991); and the relevant volumes of The New Cambridge Modern History, 14 vol. (1957–79); and of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, 2nd ed. (1966– ).
Studies of the individual states include, on Savoy, Geoffrey Symcox, Victor Amadeus II: Absolutism in the Savoyard State, 1675–1730 (1983); on Venice, the work by Lane cited above in the section on histories of the individual city-states; and the work by Muir cited in the section above (14th–15th centuries); on Florence, R. Burr Litchfield, Emergence of a Bureaucracy: The Florentine Patricians, 1530–1790 (1986); on Rome, Hanns Gross, Rome in the Age of Enlightenment: The Post-Tridentine Syndrome and the Ancien Regime (1990); on Naples, Antonio Calabria and John A. Marino (eds. and trans.), Good Government in Spanish Naples, trans. from Italian (1990); and Rosario Villari, The Revolt of Naples, trans. by James Newell (1993; originally published in Italian, 1967); and, on Sicily, the work by Mack Smith cited in the previous section, along with its companion volume, Modern Sicily, After 1713 (1968, reissued 1988).
Topics of special interest are addressed in Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, trans. by John Tedeschi and Anne Tedeschi (1980, reissued 1992; originally published in Italian, 1976), and The Night Battles: Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries (1983, reissued 1992; originally published in Italian, 1966); Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984); Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (1985, reissued 1989); Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (1993); Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (1987); Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (1989, reissued 1991); and Margaret L. King, Women of the Renaissance (1991).
Revolution, restoration, and unification
Works covering this period include David Laven and Lucy Riall (eds.), Napoleon’s Legacy: Problems of Government in Restoration Europe (2000); John A. Davis and Paul Ginsborg (eds.), Society and Politics in the Age of the Risorgimento (1991), a collection of essays; Frank J. Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence (1992); Clara M. Lovett, The Democratic Movement in Italy, 1830–1876 (1982); Denis Mack Smith, Cavour and Garibaldi, 1860: A Study in Political Conflict (1954, reissued 1985), and Mazzini (1994, reprinted 1996); Benedict S. LiPira, Giuseppe Garibaldi: A Biography of the Father of Modern Italy (1998); and Paul Ginsborg, Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848–49 (1979). An essential work on Garibaldi is Lucy Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (2007). Entries on major events and figures may be found in Frank J. Coppa (ed.), Dictionary of Modern Italian History (1985). Useful introductions to new debates concerning the Risorgimento are Lucy Riall, The Italian Risorgimento: State, Society, and National Unification (1994); and Martin Clark, The Italian Risorgimento (1998). Other aspects of the period are dealt with in John A. Davis, Conflict and Control: Law and Order in Nineteenth-Century Italy (1988); and Lucy Riall, Sicily and the Unification of Italy: Liberal Policy and Local Power, 1859–1866 (1998).
Italy since 1870
The fullest one-volume studies in English are Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History (1997); Martin Clark, Modern Italy, 1871–1995, 2nd ed. (1996); Christopher Duggan, A Concise History of Italy (1994); John Foot, Modern Italy (2003); and Jonathan Dunnage, Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History (2002).
Denis Mack Smith, Italy and Its Monarchy (1989, reissued 1992), covers particular aspects. Christopher Seton-Watson, Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870–1925 (1967, reprinted 1981), is excellent on the first half of the period.
Foreign policy before World War I is the topic of R.J.B. Bosworth, Italy and the Approach of the First World War (1983). The early socialist movement is discussed well in Richard Hostetter, The Italian Socialist Movement (1958); and Louise A. Tilly, Politics and Class in Milan, 1881–1901 (1992). The army is treated in John Gooch, Army, State, and Society in Italy, 1870–1915 (1989). On Giolitti, A. William Salomone, Italy in the Giolittian Era: Italian Democracy in the Making, 1900–1914 (1960), is still very useful. An excellent overview of economic history is given in Gianni Toniolo, An Economic History of Liberal Italy, 1850–1918 (1990; originally published in Italian, 1988).
David Forgacs (ed.), Rethinking Italian Fascism: Capitalism, Populism, and Culture (1986), is a good collection of articles; while Luisa Passerini, Fascism in Popular Memory: The Cultural Experience of the Turin Working Class (1987; originally published in Italian, 1984), is an interesting social history. Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (1981, reissued 1994), is indispensable; more detail is available in the monumental and controversial work of Renzo De Felice, Mussolini, 4 vol. in 8 (1965–1997), in Italian. The best biography available in English is R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini (2002). The rise of fascism in particular is examined by Adrian Lyttelton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919–1929, 3rd ed. (2004). Other aspects are dealt with in Jonathan Dunnage, The Italian Police and the Rise of Fascism: A Case Study of the Province of Bologna, 1897–1925 (1997). A look at the “forgotten” class of shopkeepers in an urban setting is Jonathan Morris, The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan, 1886–1922 (1993). The diversity of fascist ideas is revealed in works by R.J.B. Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism (1998), and Mussolini’s Italy (2006); and Philip Morgan, Italian Fascism, 1919–1945 (1995); and in biographies of leading fascists—e.g., Claudio G. Segrè, Italo Balbo (1987, reissued 1990). The collection by R.J.B. Bosworth and Patrizia Dogliani (eds.), Italian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation (1999), reflects some of the new historical work in these areas, particular in the area of memory. The impact of fascism is discussed by Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945 (1992); and Doug Thompson, State Control in Fascist Italy: Culture and Conformity, 1925–43 (1991). Now available in English is research by Emilio Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (1996; originally published in Italian, 1993). An important local study is Perry R. Willson, The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy (1993). Useful documents and commentaries can be found in John Pollard, The Fascist Experience in Italy (1998).
Church-state relations are examined in Peter C. Kent, The Pope and the Duce: The International Impact of the Lateran Agreements (1981); and John F. Pollard, The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929–32: A Study in Conflict (1985). Anti-Semitism is treated in Susan Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival (1987, reissued 1996); and Alexander Stille, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (1991, reissued 1993). Fascist foreign policy is the subject of Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini’s Roman Empire (1976, reissued 1979); R.J.B. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World, 1860–1960 (1996); and Richard Lamb, Mussolini and the British (1997).
Charles F. Delzell, Mussolini’s Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance (1961, reprinted 1974), is still useful on the Resistance period. David W. Ellwood, Italy, 1943–1945 (1985), is strong on diplomatic history. The best history of Italian communism is Paolo Spriano, Renzo Martinelli, and Giovanni Gozzini, Storia del Partito Comunista Italiano, 7 vol. (1967–98). An English work on this topic is Alexander De Grand, The Italian Left in the Twentieth Century (1989). For the biennio rosso, Gwyn A.Williams, Proletarian Order: Antonio Gramsci, Factory Councils, and the Origins of Italian Communism, 1911–1921 (1975); and Martin Clark, Antonio Gramsci and the Revolution that Failed (1977), remain useful. A neglected aspect of the period has been studied in detail by Carl Levy, Gramsci and the Anarchists (1999).
Resistance history has taken a new lease on life since the end of the Cold War. A key study, Claudio Pavone Una guerra civile: saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza (1991), is, unfortunately, unavailable in English; but debates can be found in Jonathan Dunnage (ed.), After the War (1999); and in Philip Cooke, The Italian Resistance: An Anthology (1997). Other aspects are covered in Jane Slaughter, Women and the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945 (1997); and Alastair Davidson and Steve Wright (eds.), Never Give In: The Italian Resistance and Politics (1998).
The best study of postwar Italy is without doubt Paul Ginsborg, A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943–1988 (1990; originally published in Italian, 1989). Ginsborg followed with an analysis of recent decades in Italy and Its Discontents: Family, Civil Society, and State, 1980–2001 (2001; originally published in Italian). The early Cold War years are discussed in Christopher Duggan and Christopher Wagstaff (eds.), Italy in the Cold War: Politics, Culture, and Society, 1948–1958 (1995).
The best accounts of the postwar political system are in Donald Sassoon, Contemporary Italy, 2nd ed. (1997); Frederic Spotts and Theodor Wieser, Italy: A Difficult Democracy (1986); and David Hine, Governing Italy: The Politics of Bargained Pluralism (1993). P.A. Allum, State and Society in Western Europe (1995), an exhaustive work; and Giulio Sapelli, Southern Europe Since 1945: Tradition and Modernity in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey (1995), put the Italian system in comparative perspective. An extremely useful selection of articles can be found in Mark Donovan (ed.), Italy, 2 vol. (1998). The classic text on regionalism is now Robert D. Putnam, Robert Leonardi, and Rafaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993); and good studies on contemporary regionalism can be found in Carl Levy (ed.), Italian Regionalism: History, Identity, and Politics (1996).
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).
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