Italian Modernities: Competing Narratives of Nationhood

“Italian Modernities, in title and content, poses an important challenge to assumptions that not only bedevil scholarship on Italy but also play a devastating role in Italy’s treatment in the geopolitical arena. By complicating what we mean by “modern,” the authors gently but firmly upset the easy assumptions that have substituted for thought and that have perpetuated prejudices both within and outside Italy’s borders. Grounded in meticulous historical and ethnological research, Italian Modernities deserves as wide an audience as its scholarship is deep.” (Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University)