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This collection of essays brings together the work of a new generation of revisionist historians who argue that the true history of Southern Italy has been reduced to that of a 'Southern problem' viewed through a Northern prism. These scholars suggest that the South was not a 'backward' region, but a combination of regions in which different social and economic patterns had evolved in response to the prevailing conditions within the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The book employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine not only the concrete history of the South, but also the discourses and images in which it has been framed. It is the first publication in English devoted to the new history of Southern Italy, and brings together many of the leading figures in the revisionist movement, as well as some of their critics.
". . . provides the English reader with a good account of the different approaches to the discussion . . . The outcome of considerable collaboration between Italian and English historians . . . " (Modern Italy, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1998)
Robert Lumley is Professor of Italian Cultural History, University College London. He is editor, with Jonathan Morris, of The New History of the Italian South: The Mezzogiorno Revisited (UEP, 1997) and, with D. Forgacs, of Italian Cultural Studies (OUP, 1996).
Contents: Chronology of events in southern Italy, 1799-1915; challenging "Meridionalismo" - constructing a new history for southern Italy, Jonathan Morris; the demise of "Latifondismo", Marta Petrusewocz; local power in southern Italy, Paolo Pezzino; the southern metropolis - redistributive circuits in 19th-century Naples, Paolo Marcy; images of the south - the "Mezzogiorno" as seen by insiders and outsiders, Gabriella Gribaudi; stereotypes of the Italian south, 1860-1900, John Dickie; the nationalism of politics and the politicization of the nation in liberal Italy, Fulvio Cammarano.