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Italy Since 1989 provides an in-depth account of an extraordinary decade in Italian politics. In this revised and updated edition, the authors take the transition to a new Italy as their point of departure, examining the massive changes that the country has recently undergone, and attempting to explain as well as understand the principal events. They provide extensive coverage in particular of the judicial uncovering of bribery and corruption, culminating in an entirely original account of the General Elections of April 1994 and April 1996. ... Read more

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Italy Government and Business Contacts Handbook (World Investment and Business Library) ... Read more

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Italy Foreign Policy And Government Guide ... Read more

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An examination of the nature of popular government and oligarchy in towns and cities throughout Renaissance Italy, and of the reasons why broadly-based civic governments were losing ground. ... Read more

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The main purpose of this book is to make readily available leading articles on Italian politics published over the last 25 years. The book was compiled during an unusually turbulent period even by Italian standards, after having had three general elections in four years, 1992-1996, and an entirely new configuration of political parties vying to manage Italy. This has lead to a bout of heightened interest in Italian politics, particularly as this crisis encapsulates many of the challenges confronting the advanced capitalist democracies more generally, such as the weakening of established dominant parties. Volumes I and II, both presented here, aim to explore the evolution of Italian politics from the post-war period to the current crisis, giving an historical perspective. Each of the two volumes comprises of three parts. The first volume examines the government and politics of the post-war period from a largely conventional institutional perspective, then follows a section devoted to policy areas, and a final part exploring the onset of the present crisis.The second volume emphasises the need for a multi-focused historical perspective on what is a "transition within democracy", and examines major issues of historical interpretation ranging from consideration of Italy's path to the 20th century and modernization, to the debate over the role of the bourgeoisie in Italian past and present, and the role of political parties in the long post-fascist consolidation of democracy. The final part identifies deep-seated obstacles to reform. ... Read more

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This book puts forward an original comparison of the policy positions of seven Italian coalition governments and of the relative policy positions of the Italian parliamentary parties from 1994 to 2006. That decade was crucial in recent Italian political history because since 1994 the party system in Italy has been going through a process of realignment. After almost 50 years of political immobility, Italian democracy has finally begun to work according to the principle of alternating power between government incumbents and the opposition. Specific methodology was developed for this research, with the political 'themes' articulated by Government and Parliamentary leaders treated as expressions of political preferences. Rather than positioning the parties on predetermined left-right scales, the "spaces of competition" were derived directly by the political debates in parliament. ... Read more

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Italy Government and Business Contacts Handbook ... Read more

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Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany provides a succinct and provocative introduction to Italian fascism and German nazism. Incorporating recent historical research together with original and challenging arguments, Alexander J. De Grand examines:
* the similarities and differences in the early development of the two regimes
* the exercise of power by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini
* the relationship between the two regimes
* policies towards women, youth and culture.

Revised throughout, the second edition of this respected book takes account of recent historical research and includes an expanded discussion of the role of the military in the two regimes. ... Read more

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This history of modern Italy began in March 1861 when Count Camillo Cavour proclaimed a united Italian kingdom with the goal of creating a prosperous, liberal new power in Europe. For a country whose ancient heritage had placed it at the center of western culture, this late entry into nationhood and rapid reach for power would bring frequent crisis. In this fully revised edition of his classic history of the country, Denis Mack Smith provides a complete and engaging narrative of the fate of Italy from Risorgimento to the present.
For sixty years after 1861 Italy was governed by a liberal oligarchy under a parliamentary constitution. Italy chose the winning side in the First World War, but the enormous costs of victory revealed social tensions and constitutional weaknesses that prepared the way, after 1920, for Europe's first fascist dictatorship.
After the painful civil war that followed World War II, Italy rediscovered liberal democracy, and under a new republican regime became one of the major industrialized countries of the world.
First published in 1958 as Italy: A Modern History, the book has been substantially rewritten with a new section on the period after 1945, a new bibliography, new maps, and updated factual appendices. Stylish, clearly written, deeply informed and often controversial, it remains the definitive account for anyone interested in modern Italy.
". . . an extraordinarily good and concise introduction to the scandals that almost destroyed the Italian Republic." --Alexander DeGrand, North Carolina State University
"No one will be surprised that in this new edition Mack Smith recounts the recent history of the Republic up to 1996 with the same shrewd authorial eye, both distant and perceptive, the deep knowledge, and the skill that made the older edition of this book a classic." --Raymond Grew, University of Michigan
Denis Mack Smith is a Fellow of the British Academy and Wolfson College, Oxford, and a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been awarded a dozen literary prizes in Italy and is a Commendatore of the Italian Order of Merit. Among his recent books are Italy and Its Monarchy (1989) and Mazzini (1994).
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Customer Reviews (3)

Anti-Italian Sentiments
In Modern Italy Denis Mack Smith has fallen into the error of most British historians of Italy.They see the complex and diverse history of the Italian people as a joke and this book is written in that spirit.Smith misses few opportunities to ridicule the Risorgimento and the Italians that were able to throw off 3 centuries of foreign occupation and re-establish the independence of the peninsula that hadn't been seen since the Renaissance that ended with the brutal Sack of Rome in 1527.Smith covers the era in enough detail (the book's sole saving grace), but the air of superiority he assumes and his general attitude toward the era is unfortunate.I don't recommend this book.

thorough flawed
THis book is an account of Italian Politics rom 1860 to the present.It details the rise of Liberalism in italy and the subsequent rise of fascism and then the Christian Democratic control of Italy following the war.Luminaries include politicians like Craxi and Mussulini.Unfortunatly Mr. Smith is far to harsh in his criticism and almost purpously humorous accounts of Italy's role in political and military affairs.unfortunatly there are few books that document Italy's political history for such a long period 1860-present.Theirfore it is a worthwhile read to understand the long passage of Italian political history.

Unfortunatly I think Mr. SMith underestimates the great Italian politicians like Craxi and Mussulini and Crispi, the many faces of Italian politics, he makes fun of Italys military adventures(against the Ethiopians, Austrians, Americans, and Libyans among others).It is unfair to pretend that Italy was totally incompetant when in fact it played a major role in this centuries many wars.

A very thorough review of Italian politics since unification
In this book, I got exactly what I wanted: an understanding of the actors, events, and movements in Italian political history starting with unification in the mid-19th century. Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Crispi, Giolitti, Mussolini, De Gasperi. The author does a wonderful job of constructing these characters (and others) while conveying the changing political and societal backdrop in which they labored. A lack of tempocentrism and equal emphasis on the earlier periods were very positive in my view. Detailed explanations of the causes, mechanisms, and failures of Mussolini and fascism were especially well done. ... Read more

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Focusing on the recent Italian "videocracy," this book documents the emergence of the first Italian media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, and his rise to and recent fall from political power. It also explores Italian media activism through three case studies: a discussion of the first autonomous free radio station, Radio Alice (which broadcasted in Bologna between 1977 and 1979); a review of Italian Internet activism focusing on a political site, Rekombinant.org (created in 2000); and finally, a chronicle of the emergence in 2002 of OrfeoTV, the first Italian example of an illegal micro-TV station. ... Read more

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Big Brother è vivo e vegeto in Italia
Learn about the new ways the middle class is being controlled...then blow up your TV

A fascinating read, recommended
New technology and media has changed more than just American politics. The collaborative effort of Franco Berardi, Maren Jacquement, and Gianfranco Vitali, "Ethereal Shadows: Communications and Power in Contemporary Italy" discusses the Italian media and its impact on its politics. Covering a media mogul turned politician, free radio, the internet, and pirate television, "Ethereal Shadows" is an intriguing journey into Italian politics, offering insight on how people around the world have adapted the media to their use. "Ethereal Shadows" is a fascinating read, recommended.
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This compelling memoir of Richard N. Gardner's years as ambassador to Italy from 1977 to 1981 offers fascinating insights into the foreign policy of the Carter administration as well as into a critical turning point in Italian history and in the history of the Cold War. This tumultuous period witnessed U.S. attempts to contain Eurocommunism, the rise of the Red Brigades, the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, and the deployment of theater nuclear forces in Europe. Balanced, scrupulous, and compelling, Gardner's memoir will be invaluable reading for all those interested in the inner workings of U.S. foreign policy, diplomacy, and European politics. ... Read more

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A Forgotten Success
The Carter Administration's success in helping Italy to stay on the pathway of freedom and democracy, at a moment when it could have gone in the oppostie direction, is a shining example of enlightend diplomacy over cold war ideology. Richard Gardener, Carter's appointed ambassador, with his Italian wife, was the essential ingregient in keeping vital contact with the Italian center-left that made it all possible.

The ethical realism of this important episode, set the stage for all that followed under Ronald Reagan. It was an essential, and quite necessary, link in George Kennen's "containment policy"...that eventually led to the happy end of the Cold War. ... Read more

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Politics and Intellectual Culture
Martines devotes himself to 2 themes.The first is Power; the history of the distinctive political culture of Italian city states.The second is the relationship between political/social history of the city states and the flowering of Renaissance high culture.Martines' primary goal is to expose the social phenomena that led to the efflorescence of Renaissance high culture.
The first half of the book is a solid and well written history of the emergence of republican city states in Nothern Italy.Martines covers the Medieval background, the struggle of city based elites to establish control over the cities from the feudal nobility and other traditional actors, the emergence of more republican forms of government, and the eventual emergence of powerful oligarchies.This part is a generally well balanced combination of overview and specific examples which gives an idea of the diversity of events in different city states.Martines gives some idea of how the civic and republican oriented attitudes engendered by the city states generated something new in Western culture.
The second half of the book is primarily a social history of Renaissance high culture, examining its relationship to the status of elites in the city states.For example, he sees humanism as primarily a program for the oligarchic elites of the city states.Fifteenth century art, with its emphasis on realism and human activities is seen as an extension of the self-confidence and sense of mastery of city state elites.The political and social disaster that followed the French/Spanish invasions of the Italian peninsula are shown to provoke be reflected in a variety of intellectual changes.These include the flight to fantasy on the part of poets like Tasso and Ariosto, the emphasis on uncontrollable forces (fortuna) in the work of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and the emergence of the Mannerist style in art.Martines is an astute critic and the social history of high culture is the best part of the book.
While this book is not really intended as a comprehensive overview of the Renaissance, there are a number of deficiencies.While Martines does mention the importance of changes in population and trade, there is little discussion of demographic or economic history per se.Addition of even a small amount of data would have been useful.There is really no discussion of the effect of the great 14th century Black Death and subsequent plagues.I find it hard to believe that this demographic catastrophe didn't have something to do with the emergence of seignorial rule in approximately the same period.Martines's discussion of high culture doesn't touch on science at all and an expanded discussion of political theory would have been appropriate.

Top quality history for non specialists
I'm happy to endorse the points made by 'Rabid Bookfiend', but just three stars is mean by normal Amazon review standards.Collin76's points also indicate something of the richness of this book's subject matter.What they don't say is how well written it is.I'm no 'more advanced student and historian' - just someone who's read a few books recently on the period - Hale, Florence and the Medici, the Pattern of Control; Frances Stonor Saunders, Hawkwood; Eliot, Romola.All worth reading, but this is the one that makes sense of it all.I particularly enjoyed the chapter on economic trends, which also illustrates some other European history.The early material on the evolution of the city states might have seemed sketchy to specialist readers, but it's exactly what a non-specialist needs; NOW I understand something of their variety - not just Florence.A quote from p. 217, referring to humanism - 'It spoke for an elite, and to ignore this is to get the Renaissance wrong and to show that we do not see the forces and social interests that lie behind our own values.'Such a writer is going to provoke, but the intelligent reader will be challenged to think.What more could he / she want?

A Tendentious Argument
In Power and Imagination, Lauro Martines argues that the Italian Renaissance had two stages with the second building upon the first."In the first stage, social energies--economics, politics, a vibrant demography--were primary and foremost; in the second, the lead went to cultural energies" (332).Mirroring this thesis, his title refers to political authority (the power) and the "articulated ... consciousness of those who speak for the powerful" (the imagination) (xi).Martines also advocates that historians engage in "the sustained scrutiny and deep analysis of texts" (x).This approach is refreshing compared to number heavy history, but it does have its own particular dangers.

Throughout the book, Martines focuses on the communal nature of the city-state.He seems to argue that everything good in the Italian Renaissance sprang from this tentative egalitarian civic nature.In the first half of the book Martines takes the reader on a tour of his first stage of the Renaissance, describing the development of the communes and their further development into republics or signories.Then in the second half of the book he focuses more on the cultural development of these city-states, but he argues that this creativity was the city-states' spending the intellectual and moral capital from their commune days.However, many of Martines's assertions regarding the civic source for the "imaginings" of the Renaissance are shaky or truncated interpretations.

Martines's description of the humanists has certain problems.He admits that he had to deemphasize the role of the university in the humanists' origins in order to make his point that they were an extension of civic culture (203).He points to the lawyers and notaries as being the "critical figures in the origins of humanism."Not only does he fail to give the doctors of the Church the credit due them, he also attributes "new" forms of learning and inquiry to the humanists that were not new at all.He claims that the humanists developed the strategies of putting texts in context, and that medieval thinkers were atemporal.However, medieval commentaries on both ecclesiastical and classical texts contain accessi by which students would learn about a work's context.He also attributes the development of textual criticism to the humanists.However, the Greeks at the Library of Alexandria, in trying to purify the text of Homer, essentially used the same canons of criticism that scholars use today.Additionally, Origen did textual criticism on the Septuagint, and scholastics used the same canons in order to preserve Jerome's Vulgate from accretions with the Old Latin texts.Though the humanist emphasis was different from that of the scholastic, humanism should not be viewed as the sharp break with the past that Martines presents.

Martines also views the Renaissance's idea of "the dignity of man" as originating in the dignity of the urban elites (214-217).This interpretation seems a bit tendentious, and fits too well with his broader argument.That "the dignity of man" ideal is located in the imago dei seems much more plausible.Martines thinks that because many texts speak of man's domineering others that the dignity must be a fiction.However, equating egalitarianism with dignity is Martines imputing a contemporary value on the texts.He warns his readers of this danger elsewhere but succumbs to it here.

I found Martines's description of the "power" engaging and persuasive (though I have little background in Renaissance Italy's politics).However, the strength with which he binds the imagination to the power leaves me with strong doubts.His thesis needs room to breath.Perhaps I demonstrate my naivety, but I refuse to believe that power is everything.

An overview of Renaissance politics and culture intended for more advanced students and historians
Originally published in 1979, Martines's study of the rise and fall of the city-states in Italy, especially of its cultural manifestations (literature, art, architecture, political theory, and the philosophy of humanism), has for the most part withstood the test of time. The volume is not really an introductory survey for lay readers, nor is it a scholarly monograph. (In fact, the usual scholarly apparatus--notes and so on--is astonishingly sparse.)

Instead, the volume will serve as an overview for advanced undergraduates and specialists, summarizing the scholarship to date, integrating Martines's views on the interactions between economic class and cultural production, and presenting a largely revisionist analysis that portrays the Italian republics not as beacons of democracy or humanism (in the modern sense of the words) but as oligarchic structures alternating between periods of chaos and political stability.

Martines does not even broach the Renaissance era for the first third of the book. Instead, he develops the rise of the city-states during the eleventh through fourteenth centuries. It's the weakest part of the book, largely because his discussion is so filled with series of vague generalizations and with laundry lists of the common characteristics (or distinctions) across a swath of cities. Only occasionally does he depart from abstraction to mention specific historical examples, and for the uninitiated this first hundred pages will make torpid reading.

The meat is in the later sections of the book. At the risk of oversimplification, Martines's basic points are (1) that the political and military forces driving the city-states were defined by and developed for competing oligarchies (e.g., nobles against merchants, or one city against another) and (2) that the flowering of humanism was entirely at the service of those oligarchies. In short, a "Renaissance man" was a member of the upper class. Among historians today, these are hardly controversial tenets, but Martines shows how the attitudes and prejudices of the upper classes pervaded every aspect of life and art, from the "grandeur and show, order and ample spaces, finesse and finished surfaces" of architectural design, to the pragmatic ("realist and utopian") political visions of Machiavelli and Guicciardini, to the "relaxed and civilized" idealism portrayed by Castiglione's handbook for courtiers.

Martines's work serves as a partial rejoinder to those generalists (for example, Jacques Barzun, Daniel Boorstin) who still see the Renaissance primarily for the flowering of republicanism and humanism. Italy's art, culture, philosophy, politics, and militarism--all were at the service of the wealthy, and all were formulated to insure the continuing domination by those elites. Only much later were artists, historians, and scholars able to sift through this heritage for its potential republican virtues.

genious
This book is perhaps the definitive intellectual work on power relationships within Renaissance Italy.Power and imagination in the City-States formed in a reciprocal relationship.Artistry oft relectedwhat patrons desired more than anything else. Patronage kept the purse andtold painters exactly what to paint and even allocated how much of whatpaint to use.Thus great works of art and intellect not so much reflectedthe imaginative genious of individuals as the pull from strings of power. The irony is that this gave birth to intellectual freedom. Martinez is atrue genious in telling the theoretical as well as practical implicationsof this. ... Read more

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Recognized widely within Italy as the major post-war synthesis of medieval Italian history since its publication in 1979, this book now appears for the first time in an English translation. It covers the political and social development of Italy from the late Roman Empire to the early Renaissance. ... Read more

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Since 1994, Italian politics has been dominated by the larger-than-life figure of Silvio Berlusconi. Blending discussion of personalities, parties, and policies with detailed geographical analyses, this book provides innovative insight into Berlusconi's career. "Berlusconi's Italy" provides a fresh, thoroughly informed account of how Italy's richest man came to be its political leader. Without dismissing the importance of personalities and political parties, it emphasizes the significance of changes in voting behaviors that led to the rise - and eventual fall - of Silvio Berlusconi, the millionaire media baron who became prime minister.Armed with new data and new analytic tools, Michael Shin and John Agnew reveal that regional politics and shifting geographical voting patterns were far more important to Berlusconi's successes than the widely credited role of the mass media. Shin and Agnew reject the prevailing orthodoxy about how coalitions are organized and replaced in Italy. Instead, using recently developed methods of spatial analysis, they offer a compelling new argument about contextual re-creation and mutation.They conclude that Berlusconi's success (and later defeat) can be best understood in geographic terms, and they suggest that geographical analysis has a useful role to play in examining political behavior in Italy and beyond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Why do so many Italians vote for Berlusconi, Not Why I Wouldn't Vote for Him!
This is a change from the usual blether about the media in politics any why Berlusconi's ownership explains all there is to know about why he has been electorally so successful. I suppose in the US the equivalent would be explaining why Dubya had so much support even in the face of utter incompetence without resorting to all the false consciousness of religious zealots stuff.The authors show how Berlusconi put together a nationwide coalition in Italy from disparate political elements with roots in different regions.Anyone who knows even a little about Italy will get it. Lots of maps to illustrate the text. But anyone who graduated from college should be able to follow the empirical evidence. There are also lots of anecdotes to relieve the heavy duty stuff.It's also short.Most of the journalism about Berlusconi is much more verbose.

Much ado about nothing
This book has the potential to be an interesting and provacative analysis of Berlusconi and Italian politics with a geographic focus.However, written by academics apparently for academics, it is the usual blah blah blah without much clarity or focused points of interest for serious non-academic readers. ... Read more

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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Harvard University Press in 1914 in 237 pages; Description: "An abridgement of the author's Governments and parties in continental Europe, published in 1897."; Subjects: History / General; ... Read more