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There is no European society whose modern history has been more deeply marked by disasters, both natural and social, than has Italy's. Disasters test the social fabric and the political system to their limits. Survival and rebuilding draw on the deepest cultural reserves. This volume brings new research on all aspects of the Italian experience of disaster from unification to the present day. The book is a significant contribution both to the understanding of Italian history, and to the study of the impact of disasters on society.
List of contents
Introduction PART I: THINKING DISASTERS; J.Dickie PART II: THE ITALIAN EXPERIENCE OF DISASTER; J.Foot Legitimacy and the State Disasters and the Building of the National Image of the House of Savoy; C.Brice The Clericals and Disaster: Polemic and Solidarism in Liberal Italy; O.Logan Dogleg and Ad: Two Disasters of Italian Colonialism; G.Finaldi The Disaster of Caporetto; G.Procacci Medical and Moral Disaster: Epidemic Malaria in Latina, 1944-46; F.M.Snowden Policy and Politics Civil Protection in Italy: Recent History, Current Status, and Future Prospects; D.Alexander Three Earthquakes: Political Response, Reconstruction, and Institutions: Belice 1968, Friuli 1976, Campania 1980; J.Chubb Experience, Representation, and Memory The Smell of Disaster: Messina 1908; J.Dickie Disaster and the Millennium: The Peasantry after 8 September 1943; R.Absalom The City and the Massacre: Milan and Piazza Fontana, 1969-1999; J.Foot Shapes of Memory: Commemorating a Terrorist Act: the Slaughter in Bologna; A.L.Tota Rituals and Rhetorics of Disaster: Patterns of Catastrophe Coverage in the Italian Media: Sarno 1998; S.Magistretti From Boat People to White Blacks: Albanians in Bari 1991 and Brindisi 1997; D.Forgacs
About the author
JOHN DICKIE is Senior Lecturer in Italian at University College London and is the author of
Darkest Italy: The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860-1900.JOHN FOOT is British Academy Research Fellow in the Department of Italian, University College London.
FRANK M. SNOWDEN is Professor of History at Yale University. His publications include
Violence and Great Estates in the South of Italy, The Fascist Revolution in Tuscany, 1919-1922 and
Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884-1911.
Summary
There is no European society whose modern history has been more deeply marked by disasters, both natural and social, than has Italy's. Disasters test the social fabric and the political system to their limits. Survival and rebuilding draw on the deepest cultural reserves. This volume brings new research on all aspects of the Italian experience of disaster from unification to the present day. The book is a significant contribution both to the understanding of Italian history, and to the study of the impact of disasters on society.
Report
'John Dickie's research offers one of the most acute and original analyses of the way the idea of Southern Italy has been constructed in the contemporary era. An innovative contribution by a perceptive member of a new generation of British historians who, in recent years, have helped change the way Italy has traditionally been represented.' - Piero Bevilacqua, Professore Ordinario of Contemporary History, University of Rome
'...this book is a welcome addition to reading lists on modern Italy.' - Italian Politics & Society
'The variety of the methods untilized to study disaster in this volume will surely be helpful in stimulating the kinds of comparitive analyses that would be especially fruitful among countries that border the Mediterranean.' - Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Mediterranean Historical Review
