Italy: (Inventing the Nation)

During the first half of the 1990s it seemed that Italy was in danger of disintegration. The collapse of the established political parties and the increasing prominence of the secessionist Northern League had public commentators debating whether Italy constituted a nation at all. It appeared that despite over 130 years as a unified state, Italy retained a weakly developed sense of nationhood. Yet if we assume modern Italy is essentially fraudulent, we will not understand why Italy remains intact at the end of the twentieth century, nor will we understand the unique kind of nation which the Italians have created for themselves. This new study proceeds with the working assumption that Italy is indeed a nation, albeit of a particular kind, and offers a detailed discussion of its historical development. It argues that the exigencies of state-formation were more important in the founding of the Kingdom of Italy than nationalism, and then argues that early failures to engineer an Italian national consciousness were due to the state's refusal to integrate local cultures into a consolidated national culture. Rather, a nation was gradually developed from within society, through the construction of a public sphere, through mass communications, migration movements, and mass consumerism.

Table of Contents:
Discussion of the diversity of Italy in the mid-19th century; the idea of "Italia" from ancient times to 1860; how Italy's ruling regimes tried to make a nation circa 1860-1900; why liberal Italy failed to "make Italians"; the nature of Italian nationalism circa 1900; how the fascists sought to "make" Italy; the impact of fascist attempts and why they failed; attempts to "make Italians" under the Republic; the impact of modern communications and other non-official sources for the growth of national consciousness since the war; the importance of the Italian diaspora; Italy today and the threat of devolution.

About the Author :
Nicholas Doumanis is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of New South Wales, Australia

Review :
'Italy deserves to enhance the author's growing scholarly reputation. Doumanis suceeds in weaving considerable narrative detail into what is essentially a synthesis-and endorsement-of recent revisionist literature on modern Italian history.' 'The level of historical detail does not obscure the main line of argument, which is to elucidate the particular path of Italy to nation formation as well as to suggest how nations and national identities are 'historical, mutable and contestable' and 'constantly in the making'. Doumanis casts light on the different societal, political, economic and cultural factors that combined, often in opposition to one another, in the formation of modern nations and nation-states in 19th and 20th century Europe, contesting earlier views on the historical inevitability of nations.This book offers a clear, concise, well-structured and critical account of the Italian path to nation formation that can serve as an important case-study reading to students of nationalism as well as a starting point for further research for students and scholars interested in the Italian case in particular.' 'Doumanis gives us two excellent books that challenge much writing on the subject of "the nation".'