I
enjoyed reading “The Pursuit of Italy, a history of its land, regions, and
peoples” by David Gilmour , published by Penguin in 2011.
David Gilmour is an historian with a point
of view, and the title gives his point of view away. He has doubts about
whether Italy should ever have been united as one country, because it is so
diverse in geography, history, language and ethnicity.
He quotes a statistic t that ,when Italy
was united in 1861, only 2.5% of its
inhabitants spoke present day
Italian(which is the original language of Tuscany).
Italians ,though grouped in a series of
small states, had been the richest people in Europe from the early Middle Ages
to the end of the sixteenth century. In the years after unification in 1861 it
was one of the poorest, and remained so almost until the mid twentieth century.
He particularly regrets the demise of the
Republic of Venice, which had lasted over 1000 years, but which was dissolved and handed over to Austria by
Napoleon.
The rule of Italy by a series of
independent states was not regressive.
Tuscany was the first state in Europe to
abolish the death penalty. Gilmour argues that the legal system on Naples and
Sicily was more tolerant than the Piedmontese system that was imposed, after
the Neapolitan Bourbon King of Naples and Sicily had been dethroned by
Garibaldi, and a union with the rest of
Italy put through in a dubious
referendum.
The central challenge facing the liberal
elite that became the governors of united Italy after 1861 was to forge the
diverse people of the peninsula in a single united people. Waging war was their
chosen method.
Harsh colonial campaigns were waged in Eritrea
and Libya. Italy went to war against
Austria in 1915, even though Austria was
willing to concede all its demands. Mussolini repeated the mistake in 1940.
Whereas the prevailing ideology of Italy
from 1861 to 1945 was aggressively nationalistic, the prevailing ideology,from
1945 until very recently, has been anti nationalistic, and European in
orientation.
But
not everything in post war Italy was perfect. Extravagance became a feature of
public life. Italy now has the best paid parliamentarians in Europe.
This book helps a reader to understand some
of the challenges facing Italy today as it seeks to get its people to support
the measures necessary control its huge public debt.
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