Making and Remaking Italy: The Cultivation of National Identity around the Risorgimento

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Description

This important new book considers many of the ways in which national identity was imagined, implemented and contested within Italian culture before, during and after the period of Italian unification in the mid-nineteenth century. Taking a fresh approach towards national icons cherished by both Left and Right, the collection's authors examine the complex interaction between a perceived need for national identity and the fragmented nature of the Italian peninsula. In so doing, they draw on examples from a wide range of artistic and cultural media. The book opens with an introduction which defines the case of the Italian 'Risorgimento' and places it within a large context of European and global nation-building and nationalism. Authors discuss how episodes from the distant past were used by nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists, musicians, and writers to recreate narratives of nationhood, as well as how the problem of Italian identity was before and during the Risorgimento. The question of who belonged in the new Italy, who remained outsiders, and how social and sexual differences entered into defining these groups is also addressed. The book concludes with an analysis of twentieth-century attempts to appropriate and reforge the 'spirit' of the Risorgimento, under Fascism and in our own time.

Reviews

'It is only through such projects that pessimistic interpretations of national character which sustain an existing cultural hegemony can be effectively challenged.' H-Italy 'Making and Remaking Italy, drawing from a wide range of subject disciplines, offers some fascinating insights into the relationship between history, culture and identity.' History 'An interesting and valuable collection of essays addressing important questions on the meaning of "Italianness" and the process of its "construction" since unification of Italy.' Nations and Nationalism

Author Bio

Albert Russell Ascoli Professor of Italian Studies,University of California, Berkeley Krystyna Von Henneberg Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Davis