ABSTRACT
This book is about the significance we can assign to the strengths and weaknesses of one of the major partners in the European Union. It explores them from a historical point of view, tracing the roots of the present in the past, and the difficult and often paradoxical routes followed by the ‘makers of Italy’, and the victims of their nation-building efforts, to the present condition of the country, its society, politics and economy. In particular, in attempting to identify and characterise the nature and implications of the success of Italians in coping with the material and cultural contradictions of their country’s geopolitical and economic situation and of its social structure, the book will focus its attention on the specific form taken by the modern nation-state in the area now usually coloured green on the map of Europe, and how the inner logic of its formation and its deep structures impinge on Italians today.
