Customer Reviews

Italy: A Short History

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I was initially excited by this book when I first bought it, but it became more & more difficult to follow as I went thru it.

The reason is the book's poor usage of events, places and maps. For example: the book talks about what the Etruscans did, but doesn't tell you where they are from or even who they are. The movement of people from the Po Valley is discussed, but you're not told where the Po Valley is. Don't check the index, Po Valley isn't there. There's a map on page 14 on the expansion of Italy, but the territories referenced aren't in the text or the index. I finally gave up trying to place events with places and abandoned the book at page 23.

This is a history of Italy for people who already know the history of italy.

I used this book a few years ago while teaching a course on the history of Italian literature, and can't recommend it: the prose is wretchedly awkward, and it makes for an extremely un-compelling read. The undergrads weren't wild about it either.

This book was the text used for an Italian culture class I recently took as a requirement for my Italian minor. While it was full of information, I felt that some topics were just skipped over. The Colosseum earns an entire sentence, yet Caravaggio, perhaps the most famous and adored of Italian Baroque painters (the Italians so honored him by printing his picture on the L100,000 note) does not even get a mention. Granted it must have been challenging to cover over 3000 years of civilization in 300 pages, but it just seems like this book skips over too much. If you want a chronology of Italy, this is the book for you, but if you want detailed information into the history of Italy, you may want to look elsewhere.

When one thinks of Italy, one thinks of Rome and Mussolini. The author dispels these notions and shows us the true Italy. This is the birthplace of civilization and Empire. It was also the scene of the Black Death, city states, and the battleground of Europe. The author stages the story of Italy in nine easy to read chapters. One can get a short summary of the stages in Italy's development. This would be a nice read for those about to visit the country.

The one thing I fault this book for is that it tends to jump around. It mentions a name, and then latter on talks about this person. Other than that, there is a nice little summary of the history of this great nation.