Customer Reviews

The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Professor Duggan has quite the tale to tell--the Risorgimento, its antecedents and its results, but more broadly, the intellectual themes and practical problems of the Risorgimento and how those themes and problems have affected the course of Italian history since 1796. Professor Duggan is obviously a master of his subject, which by itself would be a sufficient recommendation for this book. But as a wonderful bonus, Professor Duggan is a talented writer with a brisk style, a dry sense of humor (e.g., "In life Victor Emmanuel had been a rather poor national symbol, in death he was to make amends." (p. 305)) and an instinct for the telling detail (e.g., "D'Annunzio had always craved a beautiful death in a noble cause; throughout his life he had been haunted by the martyrdom of St. Sebastian." (p. 418)). The book includes dozens of quotations from contemporaneous sources illustrating Duggan's main points, which I won't repeat here because they are pretty well covered in the editorial reviews. I had the sense while reading this book that Professor Duggan probably had another 500 pages of materials he wanted to include, but his editors said "basta--enough!" I, however, would gladly have read another 500 pages; the book was an absolute page-turner.

My only disappointment is that the book does not cover post-WWII Italy in much detail, although according to Professor Duggan, all the Risorgimento themes and problems are still very much present in contemporary Italian society. It doubtless makes sense to wind the story down in the mid-1990's, but only about 10% of the book is devoted to the 50 years following 1946, or 25% of the time covered by the book. One can only hope that Professor Duggan is planning another book devoted solely to post-WWII Italy.

That said, I cannot recommend this book highly enough for all English-speakers who have fallen in love with Italy and want better to understand the object of their affections--and especially, her family quarrels and secrets.

An insightful record of Italy's modern history and search for identity. Although the Italian peninsula dominated politics and culture during the Roman Empire and Etruscan periods and experienced a resurgence of art and intellectualism during the Renaissance, the entire region was subject to foreign invasion and subjugation. Italy as a concept, let alone a nation, did not exist until 1861, with the Risorgimento. Previously, the peninsula was more of a geographical expression, composed of city-states, largely under French or Austrian rulership at the time of Napoleon's invasion. The peoples identified with their area, which is clearly expressed by the use of dialect; a standardized usage of Italian was not determined until the Risorgimento. This book traces the difficulties and challenges of unification and nationhood: divisions between North and South, leadership, the Church, the monarchy, dictatorship, world and civil war, the mafia, and party divisions. Italy continues to struggle to this day with debt and corruption. If you want to deepen your understanding of a culture and its people, this is a rewarding and rich examination.

This is a well written, interesting and insightful effort. From the invasion by Napoleon that got the idea of a united country started even if just for administrative reasons to Garibaldi's impact in the 1860s which actually created Italy as a single if very fragmented nation to the the continuing struggles among numerous political and religions factions that to this day impact how Italians think of themselves, this is an excellent way to get an understanding of Italy. I found the impact of such things as the division of church vs state and how that impacted politics over the decades very insightful. The political differences among the communists, fascists, republicans and the church and how the power ebbed and flowed among them over the decades was very interesting and insightful. I knew a bit about the regional differences, especially those between north and south but did not realize that they have existed from the beginning and how many facets there are to this division, even now.

I do have one caveat. From about page 50 to about 150, the author repeatedly went off on a tangent with discussions of art and literature that got a bit abstract. For a time I wasn't sure I was reading a history of Italy or a history of Italian art. But that aside, I highly recommend this as a way to get an understanding of this complex and interesting country.

This is a captivating and well-written history of the last two centuries of Italy. The author manages to summarize the important events in Italian history, and at the same time weave throughout a consistent narrative of this story: namely, the struggles that Italy has had in forging a national "identity" out of the assorted states and peoples that have constituted it. Italy's sordid experiment with Fascism is seen, in this light, as the culmination of patriots' and nationalists' attempts to create this identity. They, of course, went too far and created instead disaster for the Italian people.

The book is written very well, and many of the chapters are page-turners. The chapter immediately following the collapse of fascism is particularly good, beginning with the death of Mussolini and the maltreatment of his corpse and ending with his body being interred in state, where is remains. It nicely sums up the fact that, while Fascism ought to have signaled an end to extreme nationalism in Italy, the anti-fascists were unable to complete the task.

It is difficult to follow some of the action and characters, especially in the beginning, where it is hard to keep track of all of those revolutions! The last two chapters don't offer that much, and it probably should be seen as more of a history from 1796-1957 rather than until present. But this is a great read!

This book is a must for anyone interested in Italian history. It brings to life the expression that Italy is merely a geographic expression. It's broad brush treatment of the Mussolini years is excellent. The progression of Italian history as detailed in the book gives the reader a true sense of how milestones in Italian history follow logically from what has gone before. Moreover, the writing is not pedantic or academic. It's a good read. Highly reoommend this book.

Christopher Duggan writes an easily readable account of the Italian Risorgimento, an area he obviously knows a considerable amount about. Unfortunately, he follows the standard English interpretation of Italy as an unfortunate and lowly place. His contempt for Italy and Italians is obvious and leads him astray.

Claiming that Hapsburg Spain "stabilized" Italy by conquering the peninsula and stacking Rome in 1527 is absurd, but is a fine example of the general anti-Italian tone of the book. Another annoyance is Duggan's preference for non-Italian contemporary accounts and descriptions of Italy and Italians. Alessandro Manzoni (of great literary fame) is brushed to the side while Metternich's opinion on the lack of an Italian "nation" (while in reality a poor attempt to justify his government's (Austria) continued rule over Italy) is claimed to be an impassioned and accurate description.

I only rate it at 3 stars because the prejudices found here are the same repeated in all English accounts of the Italian's heroic overthrow of 3 centuries of foreign rule.

All in all, I would NOT recommend this book.