The Nation of the Risorgimento

This monograph is a translation of La Nazione del Risorgimento, an important work in Italian history of recent years. It argues that Risorgimento nationalism, in contrast to the dominant views in post-1945 Italian historiography, was based mainly on an ethnic (naturalistic and deterministic) conception of the Italian nation.

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This book is a translation of La Nazione del Risorgimento, one of the most important and influential works on modern Italian history published in recent years. It analyses the aspects of the ideas of nationhood and patriotism that impassioned and energized the Italian Risorgimento movement during the first half of the nineteenth century. Employing an innovative interdisciplinary approach that examines the cultural production and consumption of the period, the author has challenged the orthodoxies of post-1945 Italian historiography. He explores the developing themes that gave strength to the idea of the Italian ‘nation’, and in the process persuasively explains why so many young men and women were willing to lay down their lives for the ‘patria’ and its independence.