The politics of Italian national identity : a multidisciplinary perspective

Bibliographic Information

The politics of Italian national identity : a multidisciplinary perspective

ed. by Gino Bedani and Bruce Haddock

University of Wales Press, 2000

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Description and Table of Contents

Description

This work offers a multidisciplinary perspective on how Italians have tried, over the last 150 years, to create their sense of nationhood. The contributors explore ways in which the country's history, politics, narrative, language, media and representational forms have contributed to the sense Italians have of being a nation since Unification in the latter part of the 19th century. Although historically, Italy is in some senses one of Europe's oldest political units, having been united by the Romans 3 centuries before the Christian era, it is at the same time one of the youngest "nation states". A rich and varied cultural and historical patrimony combined with very strong regional identities, and events of recent history, have produced one of the least clearly configured "nations". The contributors to this volume give a strong sense of the variety of ways in which national identities can be constructed; there is no "essence" of nationhood, and there are many uses, both conscious and unconscious, to which the sense of nationhood can and has been put.

Table of Contents

  • State, nation and national identity
  • representations of the South - the 1908 Messina earthquake, a national disaster?
  • Sicily and national identity
  • Fascism and the idealized sense of national identity in education
  • Salo, the resistance and national reconciliation
  • The PCI and national identity
  • The DC and national reconciliation
  • language and national identity
  • the mass media and the question of national community
  • "Il bel paese" - art, beauty and the cult of appearance
  • by-passing the nation-state - the Northern League between localism and globalism
  • Europe, Italy and multiform identities.

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Details

  • NCID
    BA52501341
  • ISBN
    • 0708316220
  • Country Code
    uk
  • Title Language Code
    eng
  • Text Language Code
    eng
  • Place of Publication
    Cardiff
  • Pages/Volumes
    vii, 296 p.
  • Size
    23 cm
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