The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions and Their Peoples [Tapa blanda]

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.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the formal proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. I have long had a fascination with Italy, which was only whetted by my two too-short trips there. Art, architecture, history, food, wine, warmly hospitable people, and (often) glorious weather and landscapes. But at the same time Italy is such a dysfunctional country - crime, corruption, bloated and inefficient bureaucracy, Berlusconi, and a burgeoning debt crisis. (I realize, of course, that the same problems - minus "Berlusconi" - loom large in the United States.) In THE PURSUIT OF ITALY, David Gilmour does a good job of explaining why in its 150 years Italy, the nation, has had such a star-crossed existence and why it still has an uncertain future.

In Gilmour's view, geography and the vicissitudes of history over millennia have worked against a unified Italian nation. For centuries, the peoples of the peninsula existed -- even thrived, at least in comparison to many others in Europe -- in various city-states (such as Venice, Genoa, Savoy, Florence, Siena, and Naples). Even today, "the city-states remain embedded in Italy's psyche, the crucial component of its people's identity and of their social and cultural inheritance." When the tide of 19th-Century nationalism swept over Italy, there were no inherent ties or associations that predisposed those city-states to unite in a peninsular nation, and the founding fathers - Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Victor Emanuel - who brought about that nation-state did so without the support or approval of the majority of the citizenry. Italy as a nation was flawed in conception, and the nation-building since has been badly flawed in execution.

In arguing for his thesis - which I find quite plausible - Gilmour supplies the reader with a one-volume history of Italy (or, perhaps more accurately, history of its many and varied constituent parts). That history is a little tedious at times and the book occasionally takes on the feel of a textbook -- albeit, better written than most textbooks. But on the whole I found THE PURSUIT OF ITALY both engaging and educational. I learned more about Italy than I have from any other single source in my reading career. The book certainly should be considered by anyone looking for a one-volume historical overview of Italy before travelling there.

I am not as well read as others in Italian history but this book certainly struck me as a very efficient history of Italy. It begins at the beginning, before Romulus and Remus and goes right up to Berlusconi. It is definitely a history that is filtered through the author's perspective. As the title implies, he sees "Italy" as at best a work in progress which has never achieved the degree of commonality and nationhood that other European states have. And he is skeptical it ever will. His perspective comes through in every chapter.

He has a very strong voice; for example, many times he labels an action or decision "insane" or "lunatic". I found this to enhance my experience as a reader, in contrast with a blander, less judgmental voice.

I thought I would quote one paragraph to illustrate both the efficiency of the presentation and the distinctive voice (p.185)

"The Habsburg government made a more honourable blunder by waiting three days for its ultimatum to expire and thus missing the chance to capture Turin before the French army arrived. The outcome of the campaign was decided by two battles in Lombardy in June, which ended in victories for France but in which its Italian allies played undistinguishable parts. One, Magenta, was so sanguinary that it gave its name to the artists' colour, magenta, but little Piedmontese blood helped inspire the name since the army did not arrive at the battlefield until nightfall, after the struggle was over. At the other, Solferino, the sight of wounded soldiers left to die was so horrifying to one Swiss witness that he went home and founded the International Red Cross."

At times that voice can be a little too monotonously disparaging. This is the case as to pretty much anything that happens after "unification" which might be more aptly called "annexation" since Italy, in his view, never really has been unified, up to and including the era of Berlusconi. At one late point, the author simply amasses one sorry data point after another to show the extent of corruption and the decline of the Italian economy. Finally, in the last chapter, the author declares that the real enduring units of Italian life are the family and the town, and that any larger-scale organization of them annoys the people and should essentially be done away with. So it is not a neutral or bland perspective you will be exposed to, but it is quite well written.