Pursuit of Italy, The

Gilmour's Pursuit of Italy is a fine summary of the historical regionalism and effects of that regionalism on Modern Italy. I could not put it down, finding it engaging and amusing, while still bringing up many one-off (maybe two-off) bits of analysis and perceptions of Italy that make this such a valuable piece. Gilmour tends to criticize and minimize the evaluation of the Catholic Church in Italy, which is a bit troubling. For example, on the subject of Vivaldi "Its most talented musician was the violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi whose job at a local orphanage for girls, the Conservatorio della pieta, obliged him to provide his employers with two concertos a month" Good to know...but what exactly was Antonio Vivaldi's job? Well..he was a Roman Catholic Priest, known as the "Red Priest" (due to his red hair)..that's Father Vivaldi at the orphanage. We would never know this from Gilmour, as he seems to want to write out the charitable and glorious effects of Catholicism on Italian culture, but come on...how do you rewrite the Catholic out of Vivaldi? I still give this book 5 stars, as it is terrific history and cultural commentary, but found myself questioning where opinion starts and history starts. Doesn't spoil the book, in fact, makes it more interesting, as the author's observations are definitely slanted from an interesting viewpoint.

Many of us have been to Italy or know Italians or have married an Italian or have driven an Italian car or eaten wonderful Italian food or have marveled at Italian art or have listened with wonder to Italian music or have admired Italian architecture or have read the great Italian poets or have experienced its sense of "la dolce vita". In fact, few, if any, people have had such an indelible impression on our daily lives as the Italians. Yet Italy itself, the land of the Italian people, has had a difficult history. Difficult, in fact, is not a remotely appropriate adjective to describe a history full of feckless leaders, unremitting intrigues and conspiracies, massive corruption and military ineptitude. David Gilmour, in this authoritative overview of Italian history, describes the central problem with Italy. "Geography and the vicissitudes of history made certain countries, including France and Britain, more important than the sum of their parts...In Italy the opposite was true. The parts are so stupendous that a single region...would rival every other country in the world in the quality of its art and the civilization of its past." Italy, Gilmour concludes, has produced an unending kaleidoscope of great human achievement but continues to be unable to create a strong, effective national government that can produce a great society. In fact, in the two great periods of Italian history - the Renaissance and the Middle Ages - Italy was in fact not a nation but a collection of vastly different regional kingdoms, in many cases kingdoms in which Italian was not a well-understood language. Italy has had occasional national leaders, some of whom were not in fact Italian, but it has also had its full share of destructive, power-mad leaders, including Mussolini and, more recently Berlusconi. Only with Julius Caesar, now two thousand years in the past, has Italy produced a leader on the scale of Bismark, Peter the Great, deGaulle, or Churchill. Gilmour searches for reasons to explain why it is that Italy has failed to become the great nation-state that its enormous talents deserve. He does this with skill, copious knowledge, terrific insight and a continual sense of ironic humor. He knows Italy well. He explains Italy's plight with great clarity and a firm grasp on the consequences of its citizens to place their region first and the nation second. This is, at times, a sad story. Just as the Civil War in the United States ultimately made a strong nation out of two strong regions, Italy was in the midst of a failed effort to make a nation out of regions, some not larger than cities, such as Venice, Naples and Florence. These divisions and regional jealousies exist today. Sicily is still only remotely governed by national authorities. The difference between the North of Italy, industrious, developed and European, and the South of Italy, economically weak and close to ungovernable, remains stark. You will find in this book a wonderful series of historical sketches, outlining the high and low points of Italian history. One reads the book, however, with a mounting sense of disappointment that Italy could not have become more than it is. It is a complex story and Gilmour tells this tangled tale very well. You will not, however, find the key to the way out. Italy is the land of Italians and it seems that these enormously talented people have a way of living that is totally unique and admirable in so many ways. Their life has worked for them for two thousand years and will probably carry on roughly the same, with all the achievements and all the disappointments, for quite a bit longer.

Gilmour knows and loves his subject well. His graceful writing style, eye for the telling detail/anecdote, and fair but personal point-of-view makes this magisterial history a pleasure to read.

No promise of being comprehensive, the author promises and delivers a quick and at times scathing history of Italy. Great book, thoroughly enjoyed it, and I learned a lot. One that will stick in my mind is how so many Italian fascists easily converted to communism after the second world war. I see a lot of the political mistakes Italy made over and over being repeated by the Democratic party here in the US, and its disturbing. However, Italy pulled itself out of is economic nightmare eventually, and one day the socialists here and their choking economic policies will hopefully go the way of the dinosaur. Great book, something to learn from in many ways.

This is an odd book because, deep down, it is a good book and an enjoyable read. One that, as someone with a basic understanding of Italian history, but not one that is too extensive, I was happy to read and felt like I learned quite a bit from. However, it has some issues and gets weird at times. One thing about the book is that it frequently talks about how many people or administrations are often mischaracterized by history books. This is a good thing, as an honest and realistic understanding of people and history is only good. But the weirdness starts to pop up during these times when the author will let slip (or blatantly state) what seems like personal attacks and sniping or name-calling at people. It is jarring to see what is a pretty even-handed take on things turn into an obviously subjective opinion stated as an obvious fact and then turned into what can almost be called ad hominem jabs. I’m not even talking about things directed toward Berlusconi, but toward figures of history that are in no way personal adversaries of the author, yet feel like that. It, at times, undermines his main points (and unnecessarily so, since he makes the points without them). The other weirdness happens when, seemingly out of nowhere, the author starts slipping into meandering writing that just keeps going without adding a huge amount of insight or information. You see this often near the ends of chapters or when a concluding discussion seems relevant, and the worst offender is the very end of the book. I mean it just keeps going on in a rambling, almost stream-of-consciousness style that feels like a failure of the editor to say “uhhh….this isn’t making the book better.” It seems as if, when the actual content of history isn’t at the forefront, the quality of the writing gets noticeably worse. An area where the content is too much is whenever opera comes up. It is clear that the author is a big fan of opera, because no matter how relevant (and he sure tries to show that it is), even if it is only tangential to the rest of the chapter, the author makes sure to talk extensively about it. Very extensively. It stands out and is odd. Finally, I do not think he actually successfully made the argument that about Italy being almost impossibly divided and the Risorgimento may have been bad. He states many things, but I was unconvinced because it isn’t clear that the alternatives would have been any better or different. Yes, the points are made that “look, they are different from each other”, “they speak different dialects, or at least used to”, “there is a geographical divide”, “people from different regions aren’t like people from other regions”. But these are not special to Italy whatsoever, and I many ways characterized the U.S. Overall, I think this is a good book that is constrained by its weirdness. There is a good, if not great, book in there that a good editor could have pulled out.

great book for people who like visiting Italy

Gilmour's pursuit is ambitious both in scope and intent, covering Italy's land, regions and people from Ancient Rome to the Berlusconi administrations in a tightly written 400 pages. He cautions that since this is not an academic work (although 376 source books are cited in the text), he has allowed himself "to be quirkily subjective in (his) selection of topics." The author begins with a discussion of Italy's defining geographic features: too long; easily invaded; divided from north to south and from east to west; lacking in timber, fish, fishermen, sailors and navigable rivers; malaria prone and multi-racial. Gimour proceeds to review almost every important era of the peninsula's history from Imperial Rome through the Risorgimento and ending with a review of today's economic, social and political challenges. His approach is to analyze the country's centrifugal tendencies, arguing that more traditional histories "had been written from a centripetal view, as if Italian unity had been pre-ordained." Questioning whether unification had been either necessary or inevitable, Gilmour asks: "Were there not just too many Italies for a successful unity?" Early portions of the text can be a bit challenging as the author weaves together the varied and complex historical threads of the Holy Roman Empire. The book takes off, however, in an extended and lucid description of the Risorgimento. Gilmour sees the latter resulting from a war of expansion conducted by the Piedmontese. "Annexation (of the Papal States and the Kingdom of The Two Sicilies) plainly meant 'piedmontization', the imposition of northern laws, customs and institutions on distant regions with no experience of their workings." The Kingdom of Italy was formally proclaimed in 1861 but, constitutionally, was a greatly expanded Piedmont with a new name. Venice and Rome fell into Italy's hands in 1866 and 1870 respectively more as the result of machinations between Austria, Prussia and France than through Italian military or political victories. In Gilmour's view, nationalist Italy was more imposition than evolution. "Nearly a century and a half after unification - and more than sixty years after Mussolini's death - Italian politics had still been unable to settle into any kind of rhythm or consistency," concludes the author. Italy's birth rate, economic growth and EU compliance are at low points while its Corruption Index (according to Transparency International ranking) rises. The sense of national unity, Gilmour argues, has disappeared as Italians increasingly question the legitimacy of the state. Countries such as Britain and France, observe Gilmour, are more important than the sum of their parts. Communal Italy, however, represented in its cities and regions, is the strength of the country and receives the true allegiance of its citizenry. The author quotes Luigi Barzini who stated that Italy "has never been as good as the sum of all her people." The reader is left to conclude that Gilmour agrees with Giustino Fortunato who declared in 1899 "that the unification of Italy was a sin against history and geography." The Pursuit of Italy ends in a question about its efficacy as a unified nation, one thought to have been settled in the affirmative long ago. As a result, this book is entertaining and truly thought-provoking, which can't help but be a good combination.

I have read several books on Italy, its history and culture. This, however, is the best book I have read in its exceptional presentation of the various countries that invaded the Italian peninsula, bringing with them their own culture and designs. The Italian people do not have a united feeling re their country Italy since the states and areas of Italy had been owned by the French, the Spanish, the Arabic through the years before Italy became a unified country. The book gives a good understanding of their political process and why it is so. Anyone interested in the history and culture of this diverse Italy will find this book a good resource. Anna M. Seidler

This volume is extremely well written - detailed, yet easy to understand without becoming tedious. The best I have ever seen on this topic. Highly recommended.

The 150th anniversary of Italian unification is a good time to publish this book. Gilmour's thesis is that Italy lacks a coherent national identity, that Italian nationalism has caused enormous damage to people in Italy, and Italy's individual regions would be more successful as autonomous units within a larger European union. He produces elegantly devastating criticism of many of the leading Italian national figures since the Risorgimento, including both the Victor Emmanuels (II and III), military leaders such as Cadorna and Badoglio, Mussolini (naturally), post-war politicians such as Craxi and (equally naturally) Berlusconi. A thoroughly enjoyable, and informative, read. I'd have liked Gilmour to develop a couple of relevant topics in greater depth. First, the Italian emigrant diaspora: people of Italian ancestry in the UK and the US seem to have a sense of an Italian national identity which is lacking in their cousins still living in Naples, Milan or Palermo. Second, the reduction in dialect use and the accompanying rise in the use of standard Italian: this is surely the consequence of national media, especially broadcasting. In 1861, Sicilians could not communicate with Venetians, nor Neapolitans with Milanese. Now they share a common language. Surely the ability to communicate with one's fellow-citizens in distant provinces has created, to some extent, a sense of national identity? Overall, a good read for anyone interested in the origins of modern Italy and the very idea of "Italy".

Divertida, capaz de mostrarnos lo escurridizo del concepto mismo de Italia Fácil de leer, el autor tiene cuidado de mostrar los matices de una historia de una realidad política compleja

La mia Bibbia (my bible). About the old Italian history (before 1850 ac) it corresponds to “official” history. But after not. What the Italian books never said about the last 170 years of Italian history... This book had never been translated and published in Italy...

The history of Italy (especially the forging of a national entity) explains so much about how Italy is today. Italy has given the world so much in creative and culinary spheres, but they have not really gained status as a true world power. The trials and tribulations of their unification explain much. The book was heavy going in places - lots of detail to take in. However, I did find it informative.