Overview
In September 1870 papal Rome fell to the troops of Victor Emmanuel II, and became the capital of a united Italy the following year. Martin Clark's famous book is an analytical account of the political, economic and social history of the new country from that time to the present. Throughout, he lays particular emphasis on Italian society - on demography, literacy, leisure pursuits, religious practices and family life; and also on the unusually complex relationship between the institutions of the Italian State and the mass of the population.
After examining the early attempts at nation-making, Dr Clark helps us to understand why, given the diversity and apparent backwardness of Italy before 1914, its Liberal regime in the 1920s was unable to withstand the rise of Fascism. He illuminates the peculiar character of Fascist Italy, and the reasons for its failure in wartime. He charts the increasing confidence and prosperity of the postwar nation, despite the fissiparity of its political system, and he considers its place in the new Europe; but he also shows how deeply rooted are the problems facing modern Italy, where current disputes reflect, and perpetuate, debates and divisions already centuries old.
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The First Edition of Modern Italy took the story into the early 1980s, and rapidly established itself as "the sta