ABSTRACT
There is a long tradition that identifies the Italian Risorgimento with both the aspirations and the material interests of the bourgeoisie. In part, this tradition reflects broader historical interpretations that identify the nineteenth century with ‘bourgeois progress’ and, in part, it reflects political controversies within Italy. A non-political approach to the Risorgimento, which explains national unification in terms of social and economic developments, has much to recommend it. It provides, above all, a point of departure from the idealist traditions of Risorgimento historiography, which stressed the political, military or diplomatic actions of a small elite and underestimated material considerations and constraints. Yet this identification of the Risorgimento with bourgeois revolution suffers from acute definitional problems. Who were the Italian middle classes? How and when did they carry out a ‘bourgeois revolution’? For many historians of the Risorgimento working within this framework, the Italian experience can only be explained as a case of ‘failed bourgeois revolution’, or as a deviation from liberal middle-class norms.
