Italia in Perioada Risorgimento: Stat, Societate si Unificare Nationala

by Lucy Riall, Irina Ciornei-Sandu (Translator)

Risorgimento ("Renaşterea" anilor 1815–-1860) este una dintre cele mai contestate şi controversate perioade din istoria Italiei. Statul italian modern îşi dobân­dea atunci "părinţii fondatori" (Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi) şi ideile politice esenţiale (liberalism, naţionalism, republicanism).

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction

171 pages, Hardcover

First published May 26, 1994

About the author

Formerly Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, Lucy Riall is a professor in the Department of History and Civilisation at the European University Institute in Florence.

Reviews

[Shane Avery]

More than adequate if you need to know the historiography of the subject. Dry and a bit dense, and lots of time given to the revisionists, which means some yawning and head scratching; the revisionists are good at problematizing, but rarely reach any conclusions, other than "as you can see, we can't draw any conclusions..." Not sure how much departure/revision is needed from Gramsci's conceptual framework anyway...

[Benjamin]

Comprehensive, accessible and concise. A perfect starting place for a dabbler in this period, providing one already has a rough grounding in the European landscape of the period.

[Jessica DMJ]

To be honest, I was disappointed in this book. It is basically an 80ish page literature review/historiography of the Risorgimento. As a result, it is quite dry...Riall spends most of the book reviewing scholarly sources on different perspectives of the Risorgimento: government, society, and economic development. However, there wasn't much there in terms of original arguments, which is what I think made it disappointing. And something about the arguments there felt watery. The last two chapters (5 &6) were the most interesting because Riall takes her own stance on things; I especially appreciated her analysis of Mazzini, because most people discount him as an Romantic idealist when he did so much more. But I recognize I have a soft spot for Mazzini. Other parts of this chapter were stronger, and made me want to give it 3 stars instead of 2.

[emily dunsby]

saved my history coursework actually, had the time of my life reading this

[Davide Di Legge]

Un libricino che offre diversi spunti interessanti sulle interpretazioni storiografiche del Risorgimento.

[Supriyo Chaudhuri]

This is a great short introduction to Risorgimento and Italian Unification, which the author clearly distinguishes between. There is a wealth of historiographical information, particularly detailed surveys of the 'revisionist' histories of nineteenth century Italy and what came after. I read this as an introduction to my more general studies in Modern Italian History, and it served that purpose exceptionally well.