Italian vices
Subtitle: nation and character from the Risorgimento to the republic
By: Silvana Patriarca
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, UK; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780521761017
Description: "Why do Italians believe that they have a national character and that this character is a major reason for their political woes? Why is their self-image so frequently derogatory? In this meticulous new study of the role of national character in Italian political and social discourse, Silvana Patriarca reconstructs the genealogy of a pervasive idea in the culture of modern Italy. Using sources ranging from political pamphlets to newspapers and films, this book shows how self-representations of national character and its vices were shaped by foreign perceptions and stereotypes, internal political struggles, and changing intellectual paradigms. Investigating the politics of these representations, their ideological content, and their uses, the author recasts the study of Italian patriotism and nationalism as discourses and sheds new light on Italian political culture and on the rhetoric of nationalism more generally"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Indolence and regeneration; title: Making citizens of character; title: Latin individualism in the age of empire; title: Virtues of war : Italian character "tested" and "revealed"; title: "A difficult substance to modify"; title: "Autobiographies" of the nation; title: "Good people"?; title: "Italians, that's the way we are".