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The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples
Visiting a villa built by Lorenzo de Medici outside Pisa, David Gilmour fell into conversation about the unification of Italy with a distinguished former '"You know, Davide," he said in a low conspiratorial voice, as if uttering a heresy, "Garibaldi did Italy a great disservice. If he had not invaded Sicily and Naples, we in the north would have the richest and most civilized state in Europe." After looking cautiously round the room he added in an even lower voice, "Of course to the south we would have a neighbour like Egypt."'
Was the elderly Italian right? Was the unification of Italy a mistake? The Pursuit of Italy traces the whole history of the Italian peninsula in a wonderfully readable style, full of well-chosen stories and observations from personal experience, and peopled by many of the great figures of the Italian past, from Cicero and Virgil to Dante and the Medici, from Cavour and Verdi to the controversial political figures of the twentieth century. The book gives a clear-eyed view of the Risorgimento, the pivotal event in modern Italian history, debunking the influential myths which have grown up around it.
Gilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always lain in its regions, with their distinctive art, civic cultures, identities and cuisine. The regions produced the medieval communes and the Renaissance, the Venetian Republic and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, two of the most civilized states of European history. Their inhabitants identified themselves not as Italians, but as Tuscans and Venetians, Sicilians and Lombards, Neapolitans and Genoese. This is where the strength and culture of Italy still comes from, rather than from misconceived and mishandled concepts of nationalism and unity.
This wise and enormously engaging book explains the course of Italian history in a manner and with a coherence which no one with an interest in the country could fail to enjoy.
463 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 3, 2011
About the author
David Gilmour
15 books34 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sir David Robert Gilmour, 4th Baronet is a Scottish author. He is the first son of Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, 3rd Baronet, and Lady Caroline Margaret Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch. HRH Princess Margaret was his sponsor at his Christening. He became the 4th baronet on the death of his father in 2007.
Gilmour was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford.
Gilmour is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and four children.
Sir David Robert Gilmour, 4th Baronet is a Scottish author. He is the first son of Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, 3rd Baronet, and Lady Caroline Margaret Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch. HRH Princess Margaret was his sponsor at his Christening. He became the 4th baronet on the death of his father in 2007.
Gilmour was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford.
Gilmour is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and four children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 285 reviews
July 23, 2024
A brisk and opinionated history of Italy, from antiquity to Berlusconi. It's very good: Gilmour knows Italy well and can write a smart, witty sentence. Some people have found his account insufficiently reverent towards its subject (among other things, he hates polenta, feels sceptical about the ‘Florentinocentrism’ of art historians, and is fairly withering about Italians' claims to antifascism after Mussolini), but in books like this I think it helps enormously to have a guide who actually has a line to take.
The most persistent line is the unlikeliness of ‘Italy’ as a united country at all. For centuries, Gilmour shows, the word was no more than ‘a literary idea, an abstract concept, an imaginary homeland or simply a sentimental urge,’ while ‘for a large majority of the population it meant nothing at all’. Even in the 1860s, at the time of unification, some Sicilians thought ‘L'Italia’ (or ‘la Talia’, as many interpreted it) was the name of their new queen.
Though Gilmour admires the Risorgimento in principle for its generally liberal, anticlerical foundations, he also argues that its later image was largely the result of ‘brain-washing by myth and propaganda’, and that in practice it amounted to ‘a war of expansion conducted by one Italian state against another’. (If there's a baddie in this book, it's expansionist Piedmont.) His evocation of what was lost by the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is surprisingly emotional.
On Italy's potpourri of regional languages, Gilmour is better than many a longer book on the subject, and comes armed with plenty of revealing anecdotes:
Similarly, his thumbnail sketches of individual places are often extremely economical and incisive – try this for a lightning précis of Venice:
As befits someone who has written a biography of Lampedusa, Gilmour is very good on Italy's artistic life, and writes revealingly of the cultural imperatives obtaining after the Second World War, when ‘Neo-realism and impegno [political engagement] were the first essentials, and radical commitment remained almost compulsory’. Which is perhaps why postwar Italian cinema tends to be so worthy and humourless (the great exception being Fellini, who had no interest in politics).
The way Gilmour writes about Silvio Berlusconi would seem almost too pointed a comparison with Donald Trump, were it not for the fact that this book was written in 2011 when Trump was still a twinkle in Fox News's eye. But the parallels are striking, from the ‘collective liberal suicide’ of those on the left who did not take him seriously enough, to the breezy, policy-less assertion that the ‘economy needed an entrepreneur like him to get it moving’. Berlusconi
…his business empire resting largely on his background as a property tycoon, with many projects allegedly funded by the Mafia, which then used the deals to blackmail him.
Yet in some terrible, fairground-mirror way, Berlusconi seemed almost on-message for politics in Italy – where there sometimes seem more political parties than voters, and everything is a frantic media circus from people trying to get a slice of the pie. The lifestyle is extravagant: I was gobsmacked to read that it cost ‘four times as much to keep the Italian president in the Quirinale as it did to maintain the Queen of England in Buckingham Palace’.
‘Italians seemed to me to be internationalist and (in a good sense) provincial,’ Gilmour says, ‘but not nationalist except when their leaders forced or cajoled them into being so.’ And this, you can tell, is when he thinks Italy is at its best: looking outwards, playing a role in Europe and world affairs, or looking inwards to the vast diversity of its differing regions. It's just that bit in between – on the level of the country, which in Italy's case perhaps makes little historical or geographical sense – where things seem to fall apart.
The most persistent line is the unlikeliness of ‘Italy’ as a united country at all. For centuries, Gilmour shows, the word was no more than ‘a literary idea, an abstract concept, an imaginary homeland or simply a sentimental urge,’ while ‘for a large majority of the population it meant nothing at all’. Even in the 1860s, at the time of unification, some Sicilians thought ‘L'Italia’ (or ‘la Talia’, as many interpreted it) was the name of their new queen.
Though Gilmour admires the Risorgimento in principle for its generally liberal, anticlerical foundations, he also argues that its later image was largely the result of ‘brain-washing by myth and propaganda’, and that in practice it amounted to ‘a war of expansion conducted by one Italian state against another’. (If there's a baddie in this book, it's expansionist Piedmont.) His evocation of what was lost by the dissolution of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is surprisingly emotional.
On Italy's potpourri of regional languages, Gilmour is better than many a longer book on the subject, and comes armed with plenty of revealing anecdotes:
Five centuries after Dante, Alessandro Manzoni, whose first language was milanese and his second French, promoted Tuscan as the language of Italian resurgence, even to the extent of studying in Florence so that he could write a new edition of his immense novel The Betrothed in the Tuscan vernacular, a process he called ‘rinsing’ his story in the Arno.
Similarly, his thumbnail sketches of individual places are often extremely economical and incisive – try this for a lightning précis of Venice:
Everyone agrees that Venice is different from anywhere else. Visitors immediately see that it has no hills and that its streets are full of water; soon they also notice that it has neither ramparts nor a castle; the Doge's Palace, the headquarters of the Venetian Empire, is unfortified. As they wander about, they will observe that there are no fountains, no ruins and not many statues in public places; since it was founded after the fall of Rome, it has no amphitheatres, no triumphal arches and no classical archaeologists. Nor does it have noblemen's towers – those sinister structures that abounded elsewhere in the north – which accurately suggests a lack of murderous factions.
As befits someone who has written a biography of Lampedusa, Gilmour is very good on Italy's artistic life, and writes revealingly of the cultural imperatives obtaining after the Second World War, when ‘Neo-realism and impegno [political engagement] were the first essentials, and radical commitment remained almost compulsory’. Which is perhaps why postwar Italian cinema tends to be so worthy and humourless (the great exception being Fellini, who had no interest in politics).
The way Gilmour writes about Silvio Berlusconi would seem almost too pointed a comparison with Donald Trump, were it not for the fact that this book was written in 2011 when Trump was still a twinkle in Fox News's eye. But the parallels are striking, from the ‘collective liberal suicide’ of those on the left who did not take him seriously enough, to the breezy, policy-less assertion that the ‘economy needed an entrepreneur like him to get it moving’. Berlusconi
became a politician by accident and calculation, choosing the profession in 1994 as a means of protecting his business empire and of evading charges of corruption
…his business empire resting largely on his background as a property tycoon, with many projects allegedly funded by the Mafia, which then used the deals to blackmail him.
Yet in some terrible, fairground-mirror way, Berlusconi seemed almost on-message for politics in Italy – where there sometimes seem more political parties than voters, and everything is a frantic media circus from people trying to get a slice of the pie. The lifestyle is extravagant: I was gobsmacked to read that it cost ‘four times as much to keep the Italian president in the Quirinale as it did to maintain the Queen of England in Buckingham Palace’.
‘Italians seemed to me to be internationalist and (in a good sense) provincial,’ Gilmour says, ‘but not nationalist except when their leaders forced or cajoled them into being so.’ And this, you can tell, is when he thinks Italy is at its best: looking outwards, playing a role in Europe and world affairs, or looking inwards to the vast diversity of its differing regions. It's just that bit in between – on the level of the country, which in Italy's case perhaps makes little historical or geographical sense – where things seem to fall apart.
October 7, 2012
This is a great book on Italy. I think it is worth reading by Italians themselves too. A historical book as it should be. It is a very balanced account of country’s history and a very fair assessment of its key figures and events. Nor is his book a collection of iconoclastic provocations. You see real people, not lacquered and embellished saints or demonized beastly villains. He calls events and processes precisely by their correct names and not just recites glorious titles. A certain character could be a hero though, but that doesn’t necessarily imply you should worship him or that he lived a flawless life of conviction. It’s not a typical book of fables fed to adult kids, it’s a serious conversation that invites you to think. I wish the author wrote similar books on histories of other controversial states like mine (Russia), where so much glazing was put on so many historical figures that they actually sainted XVIII century admiral Feodor Ushakov as recently as in 2000s, never mind his actual temporal achievements. Especially poignant are his chapters on Risorgimento and Mussolini years. You’ll see how trivial skirmishes and untalented commanders are raised on marble pedestals and positioned in the central places of cities and kids’ textbooks.
It was never easy to go against the grain as this excerpt below shows:
“Italian soldiers used to enjoy the reputation of being brava gente, good fellows, ‘the good soldier Gino’ who remained good even in uniform. Italians claimed they were not like the nazis. Nor were their generals, whose decency is supposed to have been certified later by the fact that none of them faced a trial like the leading nazis at Nuremberg. Yet in recent decades an Italian historian, Angelo del Boca, has gone through the colonial records and painstakingly compiled, in volume after volume, evidence that the generals committed horrific atrocities in Africa and later the Balkans and that ‘the good soldier Gino’ is a myth: the brava gente were as adept at massacring as anyone else. The Italian army reacted by trying to have Del Boca prosecuted for ‘vilifying the Italian soldier’.”
- but I am sure you and me are grown ups enough to decide for ourselves what to make out of competing historical narrations, rather than uncritically bow to Legend, created with many different intentions, not all of which were benign.
It was never easy to go against the grain as this excerpt below shows:
“Italian soldiers used to enjoy the reputation of being brava gente, good fellows, ‘the good soldier Gino’ who remained good even in uniform. Italians claimed they were not like the nazis. Nor were their generals, whose decency is supposed to have been certified later by the fact that none of them faced a trial like the leading nazis at Nuremberg. Yet in recent decades an Italian historian, Angelo del Boca, has gone through the colonial records and painstakingly compiled, in volume after volume, evidence that the generals committed horrific atrocities in Africa and later the Balkans and that ‘the good soldier Gino’ is a myth: the brava gente were as adept at massacring as anyone else. The Italian army reacted by trying to have Del Boca prosecuted for ‘vilifying the Italian soldier’.”
- but I am sure you and me are grown ups enough to decide for ourselves what to make out of competing historical narrations, rather than uncritically bow to Legend, created with many different intentions, not all of which were benign.
September 26, 2012
I was truly sorry when I finished this book. David Gilmour has done all of us a great service in the writing of this readable, entertaining and yet serious history of Italy. After quoting Napoleon on the excessive length of the country, Gilmour properly points out that Italy is really - and always has been - a "country" of its regions and communes, and that it is too much to expect the average Italian to place his primary loyalty to the modern Italian nation/state, with its many shortcomings. He especially assiduous in revealing the shotgun wedding aspects of the Risorgimento that unified the country, and of the dubiousness of the characters who carried it out (with the honorable exception of Garibaldi). The other eras of Italian history are covered with equal verve and style. An excellent introduction to the history of this fascinating country.
September 12, 2023
Oh, this is all right, I guess. I’m always drawn to these big historical surveys because I want to learn a lot of history at once, but then so often they’re both rushed and dry, and this book isn’t really an exception. That said, Gilmour does have a thesis—that the unification of Italy in 1860 was desired by very few people, was not a natural outcome for the peninsula, and has not been particularly successful. As a result, the book doesn’t give equal weight to every era; everything up through Napoleon is covered in the first 125 pages, and the remaining 275 focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. It is definitely focused on political and military history, though the author’s cultural interests (namely opera) show up occasionally.
The book does zoom in more in the later sections, and Gilmour spices it up a bit with very critical opinions of Italy’s government, military and politicians. And I did wind up learning a fair amount, so I don’t regret reading it, although I often considered quitting in the middle sections. It’s a country I didn’t know much about, usually seen in disconnected pieces in popular histories focused on England or France, and now I know more. So there is that.
A few other notes:
- What I’d really love to read more about is Italy in the medieval and early modern periods, focusing on the independent princedoms and republics. There are a few nods toward this in the book, including a short chapter about Venice: the restrictions on the Doge to keep him from acting like a regular prince were intense and managed to prevent corruption, and the procedure for electing him was truly labyrinthine. Venice was an independent republic for 1100 years, with shipping-oriented colonies of its own in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, until it was conquered by Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna, when the crowned heads of Europe met to redraw the map, their concern was for their own kind—so former republics, including Venice, got handed out as consolation prizes to evicted monarchs from elsewhere.
- Italy’s most flamboyant and terrible leaders have an uncanny tendency to presage similar leaders elsewhere: first Mussolini, copied and surpassed by Hitler; then Berlusconi, at the forefront of a global trend including Trump, Modi, etc.
- Italian armies generally performed very poorly in the 19th and 20th centuries, and every defeat seemed to make its leaders even more insecure and bloodthirsty, baying for a “baptism of blood” that would supposedly unite the nation, attacking resource-poor African countries for the pride of having colonies (and regularly getting trounced there), and spending unreasonable amounts on the military despite having no enemies. Unless you include the internal ones, Naples and Sicily in particular having been more conquered than unified, and fighting a later guerrilla war which the central government characterized as simple banditry. These days, though, it’s supremacist types in northern Italy who want to jettison the south.
- An alien who read this book might understandably come away confused about whether there are in fact women in Italy. If you pay close attention you’ll catch fleeting mentions of a few, but overall this reads more like a history written in the mid-20th century than the 21st. According to his bio the author is a British aristocrat and that explains a lot.
Overall, I’m glad to be more informed, but possibly need to find a better way to accomplish this in the future than these draggy tomes. I’m very glad to have finally finished.
The book does zoom in more in the later sections, and Gilmour spices it up a bit with very critical opinions of Italy’s government, military and politicians. And I did wind up learning a fair amount, so I don’t regret reading it, although I often considered quitting in the middle sections. It’s a country I didn’t know much about, usually seen in disconnected pieces in popular histories focused on England or France, and now I know more. So there is that.
A few other notes:
- What I’d really love to read more about is Italy in the medieval and early modern periods, focusing on the independent princedoms and republics. There are a few nods toward this in the book, including a short chapter about Venice: the restrictions on the Doge to keep him from acting like a regular prince were intense and managed to prevent corruption, and the procedure for electing him was truly labyrinthine. Venice was an independent republic for 1100 years, with shipping-oriented colonies of its own in the Adriatic and Mediterranean, until it was conquered by Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna, when the crowned heads of Europe met to redraw the map, their concern was for their own kind—so former republics, including Venice, got handed out as consolation prizes to evicted monarchs from elsewhere.
- Italy’s most flamboyant and terrible leaders have an uncanny tendency to presage similar leaders elsewhere: first Mussolini, copied and surpassed by Hitler; then Berlusconi, at the forefront of a global trend including Trump, Modi, etc.
- Italian armies generally performed very poorly in the 19th and 20th centuries, and every defeat seemed to make its leaders even more insecure and bloodthirsty, baying for a “baptism of blood” that would supposedly unite the nation, attacking resource-poor African countries for the pride of having colonies (and regularly getting trounced there), and spending unreasonable amounts on the military despite having no enemies. Unless you include the internal ones, Naples and Sicily in particular having been more conquered than unified, and fighting a later guerrilla war which the central government characterized as simple banditry. These days, though, it’s supremacist types in northern Italy who want to jettison the south.
- An alien who read this book might understandably come away confused about whether there are in fact women in Italy. If you pay close attention you’ll catch fleeting mentions of a few, but overall this reads more like a history written in the mid-20th century than the 21st. According to his bio the author is a British aristocrat and that explains a lot.
Overall, I’m glad to be more informed, but possibly need to find a better way to accomplish this in the future than these draggy tomes. I’m very glad to have finally finished.
November 22, 2023
Adorei este livro. É excelente para quem quer compreender um pouco da História e da Cultura italianas. Não é um livro académico, mas é um livro escrito com muito espírito, dedicação e investigação. O autor sabe efectivamente do que está a falar e em momento algum tive vontade de parar de o ler... Quando cheguei ao fim, fiquei uns bons minutos agarrada às duas últimas páginas meio aflita porque queria mais... Repito: é excelente!
May 23, 2018
A hard-hitting biography of a beloved if often troubled country. It felt a little scattered early on, more of an “intermediate” book for people with some familiarity with Italy’s general history, but overall it presented an engaging and relatively thorough explanation of the region’s history.
June 17, 2024
Disappointment.
I'm a fan of Gilmour as we share a love for Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa but here he just gave me a headache - it's a very well researched piece of writing but it was difficult with the way he structured the damned thing, I can barely remember anything and I cannot make sense of any of my notes - he randomly switches from one topic to the other, each Chapter just a big mess of information that should have been in other chapters that ought have been rearranged in a more readable manner. I would have to go back to each paragraph and dissect the damned thing like it's the frog in Biology class in middle school - a shame as he makes interesting [especially linguistic] observations.
He also seems quite obsessed with convincing his readers that Italian identity is reduced to the Commune and its patron saint - as if one doesn't know that a Piedmontese would only touch a Sicilian with a 7 metre pole. On fire.
***
"In his Purgatorio Dante stresses the personal identification with a city when one character declares ‘Siena made me’ and another embraces a stranger on discovering he is a fellow Mantuan. The Florentine Boccaccio, the literary colourist of his age, demonstrated his loyalty in the Decameron by disparaging citizens of nearly all Italian cities except his own and Bologna. The Sienese are credulous and the Venetians untrustworthy, Pisan women are ugly and Perugian men are sodomites, in the Marches the males are uncouth and mean-hearted, like those from Pistoia, who are also rogues. The south contributes its share of wickedness with assassins from Sicily and thieves and grave-robbers from Naples, but no people rival the ‘rapacious and money-grubbing’ Genoese, who are depicted as pirates, misers and murderers. Boccaccio’s happy fornicators and shameless adulterers come from all over Italy, but the only consistently good people live in Florence, where the women are all beautiful and the men are noble, chivalrous, agreeable and wise."
"Nearly everyone outside Tuscany conducted their private and professional lives in dialect; for them literary Italian was a dead language or at best an official one, which sounded strange and artificial when they tried to speak it; moreover unlike English and French, it had been scarcely enriched since the Middle Ages. This unsatisfactory state produced particular conundrums for literary folk. In the eighteenth century the Venetian Carlo Goldoni wrote his plays in three different languages - Venetian dialect, Tuscan and eventually French, the language of his memoirs. Two centuries later, Ignazio Silone wanted the peasants in his novel Fontamara to speak their own language - a dialect of the Abruzzi - but realized he had to make them speak a language they didn’t know (Italian) so that his readership would understand what they were saying."
I'm a fan of Gilmour as we share a love for Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa but here he just gave me a headache - it's a very well researched piece of writing but it was difficult with the way he structured the damned thing, I can barely remember anything and I cannot make sense of any of my notes - he randomly switches from one topic to the other, each Chapter just a big mess of information that should have been in other chapters that ought have been rearranged in a more readable manner. I would have to go back to each paragraph and dissect the damned thing like it's the frog in Biology class in middle school - a shame as he makes interesting [especially linguistic] observations.
He also seems quite obsessed with convincing his readers that Italian identity is reduced to the Commune and its patron saint - as if one doesn't know that a Piedmontese would only touch a Sicilian with a 7 metre pole. On fire.
***
"In his Purgatorio Dante stresses the personal identification with a city when one character declares ‘Siena made me’ and another embraces a stranger on discovering he is a fellow Mantuan. The Florentine Boccaccio, the literary colourist of his age, demonstrated his loyalty in the Decameron by disparaging citizens of nearly all Italian cities except his own and Bologna. The Sienese are credulous and the Venetians untrustworthy, Pisan women are ugly and Perugian men are sodomites, in the Marches the males are uncouth and mean-hearted, like those from Pistoia, who are also rogues. The south contributes its share of wickedness with assassins from Sicily and thieves and grave-robbers from Naples, but no people rival the ‘rapacious and money-grubbing’ Genoese, who are depicted as pirates, misers and murderers. Boccaccio’s happy fornicators and shameless adulterers come from all over Italy, but the only consistently good people live in Florence, where the women are all beautiful and the men are noble, chivalrous, agreeable and wise."
"Nearly everyone outside Tuscany conducted their private and professional lives in dialect; for them literary Italian was a dead language or at best an official one, which sounded strange and artificial when they tried to speak it; moreover unlike English and French, it had been scarcely enriched since the Middle Ages. This unsatisfactory state produced particular conundrums for literary folk. In the eighteenth century the Venetian Carlo Goldoni wrote his plays in three different languages - Venetian dialect, Tuscan and eventually French, the language of his memoirs. Two centuries later, Ignazio Silone wanted the peasants in his novel Fontamara to speak their own language - a dialect of the Abruzzi - but realized he had to make them speak a language they didn’t know (Italian) so that his readership would understand what they were saying."
December 8, 2016
Mess of a book. Oddly organized, and the sentence structure often is so jumbled that it destroys any flow. And the author is fairly patronizing toward his subject.
November 26, 2018
This was weird. It included many historical over views but jumped around in time and geography.
Perhaps if I was better versed in the history and politics of the Italian peninsula but sadly I'm not.
Perhaps if I was better versed in the history and politics of the Italian peninsula but sadly I'm not.
August 2, 2013
This book surveys the long and complex history of Italy. The decentralization that followed the fall of the Roman Empire resulted many entities: friendly, competitive, combative and intermarried entities. There were wars and competition and money and art to be made. A pageant with wealthy and fascinating players: Catholic Church, Florentine bankers, Venetian merchants, Bourbon kings, talented artists and more played across this narrow peninsula. It's ambitious to chronicle Italy's history and David Gilmour is up to the task.
From the start the author says this is not a text book. He covers what he sees as significant and interesting. This makes for a disproportionate number of pages devoted to some areas than others that are conventionally considered more significant. For instance there is very little on any specific pope, Roman Emperor or Renaissance artist, but there are many pages devoted to Verdi (and opera) and two whole pages on the little known film "1900".
It is a serious history with a point of view (Italy by its history and geography is ill served by its unification into one country) punctuated with intriguing biographical information on some players and fascinating anecdotes. The book covers a lot of ground before it sweeps up to the present time with the story of how Silvio Burlusconi came to power and stayed in there.
If you have no or little background, this will be a difficult read. If you are not aware of, for instance, the differences in Renaissance Florence and Venice, or the structure of the Papal States, or that Italy switched sides in WWII, this book is not for you. While this material is covered, without a larger understanding, you will just be digesting these issues as the text moves on. I benefited the most from reading about the places and times for which I had the most background.
While the details are a lot to recall, Gilmour gave me a good understanding of the unification. I see the theory of how the Risorgimento begat fascism. I now understand the last days of Mussolini and the demise of the royal family, and why the story of Italy and World War II is so murky.
Gilmour goes out of his way to show the folly the unification's leaders (with the exception of the politically naive Garibaldi) and concludes with a quote from Luigi Barzini that most countries are stronger than the sum of their parts, but for Italy, the situation is reversed.
You have to salute anyone who tries this. Italy's story is not like a history of most countries. This is a history of a region that from a super power colossus became a region of many states, cultures and languages and only recently (in its history) united. You come away from this with a deeper understanding of Italy.
From the start the author says this is not a text book. He covers what he sees as significant and interesting. This makes for a disproportionate number of pages devoted to some areas than others that are conventionally considered more significant. For instance there is very little on any specific pope, Roman Emperor or Renaissance artist, but there are many pages devoted to Verdi (and opera) and two whole pages on the little known film "1900".
It is a serious history with a point of view (Italy by its history and geography is ill served by its unification into one country) punctuated with intriguing biographical information on some players and fascinating anecdotes. The book covers a lot of ground before it sweeps up to the present time with the story of how Silvio Burlusconi came to power and stayed in there.
If you have no or little background, this will be a difficult read. If you are not aware of, for instance, the differences in Renaissance Florence and Venice, or the structure of the Papal States, or that Italy switched sides in WWII, this book is not for you. While this material is covered, without a larger understanding, you will just be digesting these issues as the text moves on. I benefited the most from reading about the places and times for which I had the most background.
While the details are a lot to recall, Gilmour gave me a good understanding of the unification. I see the theory of how the Risorgimento begat fascism. I now understand the last days of Mussolini and the demise of the royal family, and why the story of Italy and World War II is so murky.
Gilmour goes out of his way to show the folly the unification's leaders (with the exception of the politically naive Garibaldi) and concludes with a quote from Luigi Barzini that most countries are stronger than the sum of their parts, but for Italy, the situation is reversed.
You have to salute anyone who tries this. Italy's story is not like a history of most countries. This is a history of a region that from a super power colossus became a region of many states, cultures and languages and only recently (in its history) united. You come away from this with a deeper understanding of Italy.
January 4, 2020
Excellent history of Italy from its earliest times to Berlusconi with the theme that Italy has always been better off as a collection of smaller entities (cities, communes, duchies etc) than as a unified country due to its cultural and geographical diversity; highly recommended
August 28, 2014
A relatively snappy history of Italy written in an engaging style, this book could perhaps have provided greater coverage to certain eras and topics. The Romans are understandably dealt with within the scope of a few pages (something had to give) and the early chapters pass by briskly before the post-unification meat - clearly Gilmour's main preoccupation even if the medieval chapters are critical in emphasizing that Italy is above all a loose collection of distinct regions and an uneasy whole.
The risorgimento is very well described while Gilmour is cynical about the whole event and its protagonists, paving the way as they did for a century and a half of political n'er do wells (Berlusconi among them). The inclusion of a whole chapter on opera seems subjective and self-indulgent - why not food or sport? Indeed, the latter subject is particularly thinly served given that it has often been the one proper binding agent for this still young nation. Simon Martin's Sport Italia fills that gap though and this remains en engaging introduction to Italy and Italians.
The risorgimento is very well described while Gilmour is cynical about the whole event and its protagonists, paving the way as they did for a century and a half of political n'er do wells (Berlusconi among them). The inclusion of a whole chapter on opera seems subjective and self-indulgent - why not food or sport? Indeed, the latter subject is particularly thinly served given that it has often been the one proper binding agent for this still young nation. Simon Martin's Sport Italia fills that gap though and this remains en engaging introduction to Italy and Italians.
October 12, 2022
I had originally wanted to finish this book before going on exchange to Italy, but I am happy that I didn’t and that I started and finished it here, in Turin. This book was a pretty nice read and summarised the history of Italy from the Romans to Berlusconi. While not an expert on every topic Gilmour writes about, he does a good job in briefly explaining the events and their contexts. I furthermore really enjoyed it when he looked more in-depth at certain cities and described their iconic features, especially when he talked about Turin, its architecture and many statues which I was able to see for myself while strolling through the city after a reading session. I recommend this book to everyone willing to know more about Italy without having much prior knowledge on history or Italy itself. All in all, a pretty good book deserving of four stars!
January 29, 2016
Unsure how this was even published, let alone how it received the fairly positive reviews it received. A claptrap of names and dates, hastily thrown together with no narrative or through line guiding any of it. Zero pizzazz or elan that can be found in other histories where the past sings and dances for the reader, becoming, for a moment while reading, the present. Blind spots a mile wide and contradictions a mile long. Was this book deal a pay-off for the author? Did Gilmour black mail someone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux? Is there a MI-5 message hidden in the text a la Three Days of the Condor? Seriously left pondering not the book's content but its mere existence.
August 19, 2017
I was delighted with the first part of the book, covering the earlier history of the landmass that is now Italy and its diverse population and culture. Gilmour is a great storyteller, tying together many threads and keeping it comlex and simple at the same time. However, the main part of this book deals with the "great men" of the 18th and 19th century - so countless invasions, revolts, conspiracies, soldiers and kings. I quickly lost interest, mainly because Gilmour's narrative became strangely disjointed and muddled. While this might actually be an accurate representation of Italy's progress towards building a nation, the sole focus on political and military action made me skim over many pages.
August 16, 2014
Started off well, with interesting ideas about the connection between geography and culture, but eventually became a litany of names and dates from the unification onward that wasn't particularly insightful.
September 1, 2022
I really enjoyed the first chapter on people, culture and language. Overall, a nice overview on Italian history especially the Risorgimento.
April 1, 2024
The carnival goal was too ambitious...
February 11, 2018
I wanted to look at the peninsula’s centrifugal tendencies and inquire whether the lateness of unification and the troubles of the nation state had been not accidents of history but consequences of the peninsula’s past and its geography, which may have made it unsuitable territory for nationalism. Were there not just too many Italies for a successful unity?
I’ll start by saying that the author delivers on what the title promises, an exploration of Italy’s past as the root of why the country as a nation failed to thrive and how Italy’s regional diversity prevents its success as a cohesive unit.
With impressive clarity and conciseness, the author presents the long history of the Bel Paese, from its Latin beginning to modern times, his arguments are well articulated and convincing. Other common aspects of Italian culture, however, traditions, features of its social fabric and regional characteristics have been overlooked or easily dismissed (one wonders if they were intentionally downplayed since they did not fit the author’s belief?).
Readers have observed that Gilmour’s thesis is critical and pessimistic, I would add contemptuous and patronising to the list of adjectives.
My rating of the book sit right in the middle, I liked it and I didn’t. I was hoping for a more balanced book, but this is a good starter presenting a good number of meaty points up for discussion, so I’m rounding my rating up. 2.5 stars
Fav quote:
It has become customary to claim that the ‘barbarian invasions’ of the late Roman Empire were neither barbarian nor invasions but migrations of not very aggressive Germanic peoples. Similarly, the Dark Ages are no longer seen as especially dark: if they were a sort of twilight in some areas, in others, such as the Ravenna of the mosaics, they were positively bright.
February 8, 2026
learned a lot but have many critiques of the writing / structure
June 30, 2013
This was a well-written romp through the history of Italy. By describing the regions of Italy, and how they functioned as political entities, he carefully laid the groundwork for an overview of the misery that became unification. The north didn't like the south and the feeling was mutual. Venice was its own special case, and then there were the Papal States - the Pope's personal territory.
Not only did the people not share a language (they spoke in dialect in spite of the eventual institution of "school Italian" based on the Tuscan dialect), they had difficulty understanding each other in terms of customs and attitudes.
Ironically, it took Mussolini's dictatorship to actually pull the country together. Nevertheless, as Gilmour points out, the government is poorly organized and, as a result, it is corrupt and poorly run.
I appreciated his insight and it was clear that in spite of having no illusions about Italy, he loves it. He called a spade a spade through much of it, which helped keep the focus on the truth of the matter. As an American with Italian heritage, it helped me understand the way other I-A people identify their heritage. It also clarified the cultures from which my grandparents came, as well as the mixed up mess that was Trieste's lot (grandfather on the other side).
I recommend this book as a highly readable and entertaining history of Italy, from ancient times to the present.
Not only did the people not share a language (they spoke in dialect in spite of the eventual institution of "school Italian" based on the Tuscan dialect), they had difficulty understanding each other in terms of customs and attitudes.
Ironically, it took Mussolini's dictatorship to actually pull the country together. Nevertheless, as Gilmour points out, the government is poorly organized and, as a result, it is corrupt and poorly run.
I appreciated his insight and it was clear that in spite of having no illusions about Italy, he loves it. He called a spade a spade through much of it, which helped keep the focus on the truth of the matter. As an American with Italian heritage, it helped me understand the way other I-A people identify their heritage. It also clarified the cultures from which my grandparents came, as well as the mixed up mess that was Trieste's lot (grandfather on the other side).
I recommend this book as a highly readable and entertaining history of Italy, from ancient times to the present.
June 28, 2020
The books riddled with inaccuracies on Italy. The author frequently holds an extremely biased contempt for the country hes supposed to be covering and does the reader and especially Italy a great disservice. The Italy portrayed by this book is an Italy doomed to fail in its pursuits.
December 6, 2025
This is a good book to read if you want to understand modern Italy. It is well-written, quite complete, and very interesting. I did question many of the author's conclusions and interpretations, but when I talked with friends who live in Italy they mostly agreed with his points, or at least could understand the argument he was making.
Here's the summary of the argument in the author's own words:
*In its three periods of cultural and economic affluence – the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the half-century after Mussolini – Italy was either divided or effectively de-nationalized. It was the peninsula’s misfortune that in the nineteenth century a victorious national movement tried to make its inhabitants less Italian and more like other peoples, to turn them into conquerors and colonialists, men to be feared and respected by their adversaries. For eight decades Italy’s leaders followed the same policy, leading their new and fragile nation on a mistaken journey to poverty, colonial disaster, the fascist experiment and the humiliation of the Second World War. It was not until the 1940s that numbers of people began to wonder whether Italy had abandoned its vocation. Geography and the vicissitudes of history made certain countries, including France and Britain, more important than the sum of their parts might have indicated. In Italy the opposite was true. The parts are so stupendous that a single region – either Tuscany or the Veneto – would rival every other country in the world in the quality of its art and the civilization of its past. But the parts have not added up to a coherent or identifiable whole. United Italy never became the nation its founders had hoped for because its making had been flawed both in conception and in execution, because it had been truly what Fortunato was told by his father, ‘a sin against history and geography’. *
I repeat: I think his points are easily debatable and may infuriate some, but are they are very interesting. And the bulk of the book is just a very readable and informative history.
Here's the summary of the argument in the author's own words:
*In its three periods of cultural and economic affluence – the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the half-century after Mussolini – Italy was either divided or effectively de-nationalized. It was the peninsula’s misfortune that in the nineteenth century a victorious national movement tried to make its inhabitants less Italian and more like other peoples, to turn them into conquerors and colonialists, men to be feared and respected by their adversaries. For eight decades Italy’s leaders followed the same policy, leading their new and fragile nation on a mistaken journey to poverty, colonial disaster, the fascist experiment and the humiliation of the Second World War. It was not until the 1940s that numbers of people began to wonder whether Italy had abandoned its vocation. Geography and the vicissitudes of history made certain countries, including France and Britain, more important than the sum of their parts might have indicated. In Italy the opposite was true. The parts are so stupendous that a single region – either Tuscany or the Veneto – would rival every other country in the world in the quality of its art and the civilization of its past. But the parts have not added up to a coherent or identifiable whole. United Italy never became the nation its founders had hoped for because its making had been flawed both in conception and in execution, because it had been truly what Fortunato was told by his father, ‘a sin against history and geography’. *
I repeat: I think his points are easily debatable and may infuriate some, but are they are very interesting. And the bulk of the book is just a very readable and informative history.
January 14, 2026
Note: This review is based on the audiobook narrated by Napoleon Ryan.
A solid history of Italy and her people. With a lot of ground to cover, Gilmour's pace is pretty steady but also fairly quick, despite the still lengthy final size. He doesn't spend much time dillydallying, and he did seem to cover the most critical aspects of Italy's long and troubled history. He also keeps his focus entirely on the Italian mainland, never spending much time on the country's (for as long as it has been unified) foreign exploits. I thought this was the correct choice, and it allowed me to learn quite a bit about the domestic life of the people.
I thought Gilmour also does a solid job in being objective in most of his assessments; while not depicting any popular villain as a hero, he does attempt to understand the whole picture of any given moment. This allows him to showcase the positives and negatives within any major development in the country's history. This doesn't mean he's without bias, however, and he acknowledges that he has his own views in the prologue, but it's pretty clear during the narrative when he steps outside an objective account.
Loved the shoutout to Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's "The Leopard" throughout the book. Based on this retelling of Sicily, it seems that Lampedusa totally captured its history and people in his story (which is not a surprise at all).
A solid history of Italy and her people. With a lot of ground to cover, Gilmour's pace is pretty steady but also fairly quick, despite the still lengthy final size. He doesn't spend much time dillydallying, and he did seem to cover the most critical aspects of Italy's long and troubled history. He also keeps his focus entirely on the Italian mainland, never spending much time on the country's (for as long as it has been unified) foreign exploits. I thought this was the correct choice, and it allowed me to learn quite a bit about the domestic life of the people.
I thought Gilmour also does a solid job in being objective in most of his assessments; while not depicting any popular villain as a hero, he does attempt to understand the whole picture of any given moment. This allows him to showcase the positives and negatives within any major development in the country's history. This doesn't mean he's without bias, however, and he acknowledges that he has his own views in the prologue, but it's pretty clear during the narrative when he steps outside an objective account.
Loved the shoutout to Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's "The Leopard" throughout the book. Based on this retelling of Sicily, it seems that Lampedusa totally captured its history and people in his story (which is not a surprise at all).
September 6, 2024
Tiivis opus Italiasta, mukaan mahtuu Rooman keisarit ja Berlusconi
April 24, 2012
An excellent book, wide ranging and also well written. For a complete beginner on Italian history this is probably the book to read. Gilmour is himself a British journalist who has worked internationally but also covered Italy at various times, for this book it seems like he dedicated some years of living and studying in Italy, in it's different regions. The book is born not of professional or academic interest but of personal interest, and reads at a good pace, with sufficient historical and political context but not so much detail that it makes the text rigid (as I found with Christ duggans otherwise authoritative political history) and rather with a lot of colour and anecdote.
In its various chapters he discusses Italy's fragmented geography, it's openness to invasion and the various reasons why the regions never united as a single political entity until the creation of modern Italy in 1861. In the process of the telling the history of the different regions he surfaces the argument, to me convincing, that the idea of Italy was a literary creation, unsupported by history or the realities of physical and cultural geography. In the process Italy has suffered a history of irresponsible government for much of the last millennium. The first king of Italy, victor Emmanuel, comes of very badly as an incompetent and megalomaniac war monger, while even Cavour, the founding prime minister and creator of modern Italy, is rendered as unscrupulous and unsympathetic to the south, caring more about the idea of Italy than for the people living in its regions. Mazzini, a writer who was early to invoke and create the idea of Italy, comes across somewhat better, though also too ideological, while garibaldi, the revolutionary general who helped lead and win guerilla battles, comes across as honarable and courageous but also politically naive. Following the annexation of the southern regions by the northern piedmontese kingdom, which created Italy, the leaders proceeded to invest in a military and attempt to throw its weight around despite having more urgent economic concerns especially in the newly claimed southern regions. Yet due to poor leadreship in its wars Italy consistently did very poorly, which was a big chip on the shoulder of its leaders. Only post ww2 for a while did the leaders focus more on economic growth than military prestige, and in the aftermath of ww2 the country grew rapidly - but so did all of Europe. More recently the berlusconi government comes across as extremely corrupt - he entered govt only to protect and enlarge his monopoly of the broadcast media in Italy and has never even pretended to be interested in good government - at least by gilmours description.
There is also some talk of the early roman empire and the geography of Italy which made it so susceptible to invasion and also meant that the north and south had economic links with their borders but not with each other. However I think the dominant takeaway for me, as a Singaporean, is that the book gives a much fuller portrait of Italy than one has from the image of its cultural exports of food, wine, and designer goods. The history of the country is sad but you would never guess from the fuzzy feel good products that are it's reputation nor from the Italian restaurants and little Italy neighbourhoods around the world. Ironically Italy apperas to have represented exactly that - a soft, holiday makers land, a place to visit but not to live, a beautiful trophy wife - for much of its history and is the reason it has been invaded and exchanged, as a political entity, so much.
The book makes one increasingly conscious of the political entity and the national historical narrative as being a construct of the ruling or victorious state, which writes this history not only into the textbooks but as in Italy's case, into the art, architecture and street names of a place. Separately it is quite fascinating to consider the different political states that existed, the Venetian republic, the Milanese kingdom, the papal states, and other variations in Tuscany and elsewhere. The book doesn't go deeply into this topic but hints at it. The overall narrative is tragic but the author ends on a heartwarming note about the spirit of local community in Italy, which is what he considers the backbone of the country really is.
In its various chapters he discusses Italy's fragmented geography, it's openness to invasion and the various reasons why the regions never united as a single political entity until the creation of modern Italy in 1861. In the process of the telling the history of the different regions he surfaces the argument, to me convincing, that the idea of Italy was a literary creation, unsupported by history or the realities of physical and cultural geography. In the process Italy has suffered a history of irresponsible government for much of the last millennium. The first king of Italy, victor Emmanuel, comes of very badly as an incompetent and megalomaniac war monger, while even Cavour, the founding prime minister and creator of modern Italy, is rendered as unscrupulous and unsympathetic to the south, caring more about the idea of Italy than for the people living in its regions. Mazzini, a writer who was early to invoke and create the idea of Italy, comes across somewhat better, though also too ideological, while garibaldi, the revolutionary general who helped lead and win guerilla battles, comes across as honarable and courageous but also politically naive. Following the annexation of the southern regions by the northern piedmontese kingdom, which created Italy, the leaders proceeded to invest in a military and attempt to throw its weight around despite having more urgent economic concerns especially in the newly claimed southern regions. Yet due to poor leadreship in its wars Italy consistently did very poorly, which was a big chip on the shoulder of its leaders. Only post ww2 for a while did the leaders focus more on economic growth than military prestige, and in the aftermath of ww2 the country grew rapidly - but so did all of Europe. More recently the berlusconi government comes across as extremely corrupt - he entered govt only to protect and enlarge his monopoly of the broadcast media in Italy and has never even pretended to be interested in good government - at least by gilmours description.
There is also some talk of the early roman empire and the geography of Italy which made it so susceptible to invasion and also meant that the north and south had economic links with their borders but not with each other. However I think the dominant takeaway for me, as a Singaporean, is that the book gives a much fuller portrait of Italy than one has from the image of its cultural exports of food, wine, and designer goods. The history of the country is sad but you would never guess from the fuzzy feel good products that are it's reputation nor from the Italian restaurants and little Italy neighbourhoods around the world. Ironically Italy apperas to have represented exactly that - a soft, holiday makers land, a place to visit but not to live, a beautiful trophy wife - for much of its history and is the reason it has been invaded and exchanged, as a political entity, so much.
The book makes one increasingly conscious of the political entity and the national historical narrative as being a construct of the ruling or victorious state, which writes this history not only into the textbooks but as in Italy's case, into the art, architecture and street names of a place. Separately it is quite fascinating to consider the different political states that existed, the Venetian republic, the Milanese kingdom, the papal states, and other variations in Tuscany and elsewhere. The book doesn't go deeply into this topic but hints at it. The overall narrative is tragic but the author ends on a heartwarming note about the spirit of local community in Italy, which is what he considers the backbone of the country really is.
June 3, 2011
this is a pretty gripping account of the chimera that is (and always has been) Italy, which is seemingly scathing of almost everything it comes across - people (especially politicians and leaders), even the food (although he does preface with a clarification of his position on polenta).
that the author paints such a critical picture (in the most part, the positive assessments are handed to outsiders) reveals, I believe, a profound affection and empathy for the subject, based on a longstanding familiarity - in other words, this book serves to show the reality behind the make-up - the real Italy not the confection. fondness with the subject can be assumed (who doesn't like pizza?) but is not necessary - this is, in short, highly insightful and certainly no hagiography.
some of the detours and cameos might seem a little odd, and I found the section covering the Risorgimento itself a little confusing (this may have been due to an assumption that the reader was already familiar with the basic events, and so a less linear text would be more insightful)
the timeline stops abruptly at the 150th anniversary - no attempt is made to gaze forward, which is perhaps wise given the eternal volatility of the subject - and even current events of the last few months are liable to alter the final few pages, if one wanted to make this completely contemporary. better to think of it as a birthday present for March 2011, a long and witty speech given at an old friend's birthday banquet...
however, overall, this is highly readable and very timely book, and recommended for lovers of farce and history alike.
that the author paints such a critical picture (in the most part, the positive assessments are handed to outsiders) reveals, I believe, a profound affection and empathy for the subject, based on a longstanding familiarity - in other words, this book serves to show the reality behind the make-up - the real Italy not the confection. fondness with the subject can be assumed (who doesn't like pizza?) but is not necessary - this is, in short, highly insightful and certainly no hagiography.
some of the detours and cameos might seem a little odd, and I found the section covering the Risorgimento itself a little confusing (this may have been due to an assumption that the reader was already familiar with the basic events, and so a less linear text would be more insightful)
the timeline stops abruptly at the 150th anniversary - no attempt is made to gaze forward, which is perhaps wise given the eternal volatility of the subject - and even current events of the last few months are liable to alter the final few pages, if one wanted to make this completely contemporary. better to think of it as a birthday present for March 2011, a long and witty speech given at an old friend's birthday banquet...
however, overall, this is highly readable and very timely book, and recommended for lovers of farce and history alike.
June 13, 2017
Anyone attempting to write a compact history of a place like Italy, covering a time period of 3000 years and doing a decent job already deserves a medal. David Gilmour doesn't hit it out of the park but without his book, my understanding of Italian history would certainly be a lot poorer.
The book begins on a high note. I found the initial pages unputdownable although to my regret, first 2000 years get over in the first 50-60 pages with the next 1000 getting remaining 350. So if you are looking to read more about the Roman period, you would need to pick up another book.
As an Indian, it is not difficult to appreciate the point of Italian diversity that remains the central theme of the book though with the context of India, it may sound overstated. I could only wonder what David Gilmour thinks of India as a nation state. But the medieval city states and republics of Italy do seem to be more outward connected to the world compared to Indian princely states and thus with more differentiated external identities.
While I was reading this, Jaya was simultaneously reading The History of Italian People written by Giuliano Procacci. Based on what I told her about this book and what she told me about that one, it seems this book does present a fairly opinionated version of history. Which is not really surprising since history is after all an interpretation of facts. But it does mean that the advice given in How to Read a Book regarding reading history is applicable here: you should always read at least two histories of any place. But alas, the dearth of time and options often make the advice infeasible.
The book begins on a high note. I found the initial pages unputdownable although to my regret, first 2000 years get over in the first 50-60 pages with the next 1000 getting remaining 350. So if you are looking to read more about the Roman period, you would need to pick up another book.
As an Indian, it is not difficult to appreciate the point of Italian diversity that remains the central theme of the book though with the context of India, it may sound overstated. I could only wonder what David Gilmour thinks of India as a nation state. But the medieval city states and republics of Italy do seem to be more outward connected to the world compared to Indian princely states and thus with more differentiated external identities.
While I was reading this, Jaya was simultaneously reading The History of Italian People written by Giuliano Procacci. Based on what I told her about this book and what she told me about that one, it seems this book does present a fairly opinionated version of history. Which is not really surprising since history is after all an interpretation of facts. But it does mean that the advice given in How to Read a Book regarding reading history is applicable here: you should always read at least two histories of any place. But alas, the dearth of time and options often make the advice infeasible.
January 12, 2015
Gilmour makes a consistent and convincing case that Italy is largely a collection of independent-minded towns and provinces. Despite attempts at national unity, from the territorial conquests of the medieval period to the Risorgimento, Italians continued to feel disconnected from each other. Unification was "a sin against history and geography," as Gilmour often quotes. This work is expansive and at times overbearing, but nearly always entertaining. It attempts to capture the major political movements from ancient Rome to modern Italy with a lot of content devoted to the Risorgimento, fascist Italy, and Berlucsconi's modern profligacy. How any self-respecting nation could ever elect a man like Berlusconi might be the greatest argument against Italy as a functioning state. As Gilmour notes, "[Berlusconi] appealed to many men because they thought that...all his pleasures were their pleasures, especially those connected with football, sex, and making money.” Ultimately, Gilmour finds redemption to modern Italian life by glorifying the idea of campanillismo, or dedication to one's hometown, its simple life, and familial connections. He notes that this makes up for an inefficient bureaucracy, corrupt politicians, and a dangerous mafia. As much as I want to believe him, this tome has certainly jaded my glossy-eyed view of Italy as the flower of the Renaissance and height of enlightened living.
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August 15, 2026Gilmour quotes a politician who says ‘Italy is a country that could never be as good as the sum of its people’.
I say ‘Gilmour is a writer who can never be as good as the sum of his ideas’.
A compelling, witty and informative read, but one i think is blinkered by the author’s sentimentality, conservative (not in itself an insult, but certainly a bias) viewpoint, and romanticism.
To be more specific, Gilmour concludes that Italy’s three periods of prosperity: the middle ages, renaissance and half-century after Mussolini were times in which the country was effectively denationalised. This conclusion follows closely after his account of the Berlusconi era, in which he emphasises a prevailing belief that Italy was a dysfunctional country. Would this not also class as a de-nationalised era?
Ironically, it seems that Gilmour lapses into the same Tory romanticisation of Italy so characteristic of English men of his station in eras past. This is not itself a bad thing, but it compromises what could in itself be a sweeping, damning outsiders perspective on an abortive national project in favour of something you’d hear on Portillo’s British railroad journeys.
I find the central thesis: that Italy’s excellence stems from its regions, to be compelling, and I give this book a 4 because i think it argues it well, but the romantic pessimism at the end of the book (the kind Nietszche would lambast) doesn’t do the previous 399 pages adequate justice.
I say ‘Gilmour is a writer who can never be as good as the sum of his ideas’.
A compelling, witty and informative read, but one i think is blinkered by the author’s sentimentality, conservative (not in itself an insult, but certainly a bias) viewpoint, and romanticism.
To be more specific, Gilmour concludes that Italy’s three periods of prosperity: the middle ages, renaissance and half-century after Mussolini were times in which the country was effectively denationalised. This conclusion follows closely after his account of the Berlusconi era, in which he emphasises a prevailing belief that Italy was a dysfunctional country. Would this not also class as a de-nationalised era?
Ironically, it seems that Gilmour lapses into the same Tory romanticisation of Italy so characteristic of English men of his station in eras past. This is not itself a bad thing, but it compromises what could in itself be a sweeping, damning outsiders perspective on an abortive national project in favour of something you’d hear on Portillo’s British railroad journeys.
I find the central thesis: that Italy’s excellence stems from its regions, to be compelling, and I give this book a 4 because i think it argues it well, but the romantic pessimism at the end of the book (the kind Nietszche would lambast) doesn’t do the previous 399 pages adequate justice.
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