The Beloved Face of the Country

Luigi Piccioni (Ph.D. in Humanities) is an economic and environmental historian and a professor at the University of Calabria. His initial research over a long period of time was the economic history of Southern Italy in the modern age. But he has increasingly dedicated himself to environmental history, making it his main field of research. The topics on which he has focused his attention are the history of Italian environmentalism, in particular the pioneering activities that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and environmentalism from the Second World War to the present, including national parks and protected areas, as well as the relationship between environmental issues and the cultural, political and spiritual currents of the 1960s and 1970s. His publications in English include the book Forty Years Later: The Reception of the Limits to Growth in Italy, 1971-1974 (2012), and he was editor of the book Ninety Years of Abruzzo National Park 1922-2012. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Pescasseroli, May 18-20, 2012 (2013). He has also written several articles in English, including 'The rise of European environmentalism: a cosmopolitan wave, 1865-1914', 'Only one Earth: The Holy See and ecology', 'Protectionism and the protection of nature in Italy over the end of nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries', and 'Protecting the Alps. Italian protected areas in the Alpine Range 1911-1991'. He is vice-president of the Italian Society for the History of Fauna and director of the environmental history magazine altronovecento. THE TRANSLATOR James Sievert received his Ph.D. in environmental history from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of the book The Origins of Nature Conservation in Italy.

PART I: THE PREMISES
1. Momentum from the nineteenth century goes uncaptured
2. Flora and fauna under threat: natural scientists take to the field
3. Travel and 'getting close to nature': tourists and outdoor activities
4. Protecting the heritage: the walls and the arches
5. The political representation of the movement: a civil interpretation of modernity

PART II. DYNAMICS AND EVENTS
6. Fin de siecle: the first crises and the first responses
7. The turning point 1904-06
8. Across borders
9. From 1907 to 1914, a season of projects and hopes
10. The great caesura
11. Achievements
12. A long agony with a glimmer of light

PART III. REVIEW
Some reflections
Italy's first protectionism illustrated
Illustrations