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Zusatztext "A thought-provoking and magnificently crafted piece of work. . . . [Krause's] narrative is both descriptive and hauntingly alive." Informationen zum Autor Elizabeth L. Krause is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts! Amherst. She is the author of A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy. Klappentext "In this innovative and groundbreaking work! Betsy Krause artfully and seamlessly combines fiction! memoir! and ethnography into a compelling historical account of social life in rural Tuscany. Through her luminous prose and multiple narrative voices! Krause brings to life not only the political and economic trials and tribulations of social life in the Italian countryside! but also the ethical and representational burdens of transforming these often turbulent tales into evocative stories. Through her compelling and exceedingly well-written narratives! un-dramatic family episodes become dramatic! ordinary social lives become extraordinary! and the reader! swept into the unraveled universe of Unraveled! is wondrously transported across a portal into brave new world of ethnographic representation."-Paul Stoller! author of The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey "In this brilliantly conceived and deeply humane book! Elizabeth Krause delves into a transformation that has changed the lives of ordinary Italian women and men in the twentieth century: the onset of the 'quiet revolution!' the transition from large- to small-size families. She approaches this change at the micro-historical level with grace and sophistication! but also tells us eloquently and honestly about her own encounter with the people whose life stories she has woven into her narrative. This book is a must-read not only for whoever is looking for the actual experiences behind what gets usually labeled-in alarmist terms-as the 'problem of low birth rates!' but also for whoever is in search of new ways of communicating the ethnographic experience."-Silvana Patriarca! author of Numbers and Nationhood: Writing Statistics in Nineteenth-Century Italy Zusammenfassung Bridging literary conventions, this work explores the cultural origins of a quiet revolution that occurred over the course of the twentieth century. It combines novelistic and ethnographic techniques to illuminate population dynamics that have raised alarm across Europe and the US, and manifested, for example, in Italy's extremely low birthrate. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations Cast of Characters Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: History Imagined 1. Postcards 2. Abandoned 3. Telling Time 4. Fascist Folk 5. Giotto's Circle 6. Blood Relations 7. Chains 8. Rations 9. War Country 10. Resistance 11. American Chocolates 12. Only One Part II: Memory Encountered 13. Neighbors 14. A Weaver's Tale 15. Progress 16. Singles' Sexuality 17. Amazing Grace 18. A Burning Question 19. Generation Gap 20. "Wet" and Hidden Economies Epilogue Notes References Index ...