Customer Reviews

The Proud Italians: Our Great Civilizers

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

 

 

Most recent histories relating to Italy's history, and even many placemats in your local pizzeria, begin Italy's story from the Fall of the Roman Empire and fail to demonstrate Italy's foundation in the building of Western Civilization.

The Proud Italians, in every chapter, shows the underpinnings of Italian culture with its Roman/Etruscan roots. Words like Renaissance ("Rebirth") and Risorgimento ("resurgence")are absolutely meaningless without classical Italy and its first unification under Rome.

We know of Italy's art and architecture in the scheme of Western Civilization but too few historical references make a case for the Italian achievement in government (eg. Beccaria in fighting capital punishment or the concept of citizenship and equal rights) or England's cultural inspiration from the peninsula during the formation of their empire.

Only if one has read Will Durant (Christ and Caesar) or The Pictorial History of the Italian People by Massimo Salvadori can you appreciate what authors Pescosolido and Gleason have done in The Proud Italians.

This work is the closest thing to a full history as anything that has come out in the past 30 years.

Too many people that I have known are of the opinion that the English (Anglo-Saxons) are responsible for all of modern Western society. While they simultaneously believe that all the Romans left us were a few statues and ruins. Yet this book points out that all of the English traditions, especially those relating to our legal system and the rule of law, were handed down to them by the Romans.

A great book to introduce yourself to the full impact of Roman civilization on our day to day lives

Excellent service, prompt delivery, excellent conditon
as described, packaged well.
Would use again.

There is some interesting information on Italian civilization in this book, and some of it is even correct, but the book is atrociously and ludicrously written and was apparently not edited. Not to be used in school courses--it's too awful even for that debased use. This is a book for the person who knows absolutely nothing about Italian civilization and doesn't want to remedy that state of affairs very much. Why there's a 19-page chapter on the Etruscans (about whom we know comparatively little) in a 187-page book on Italian civ from the Romans to Gallo Wine and Geraldine Ferraro is way beyond anyone's guess.