ABSTRACT
In Italian history, as in Italian politics, the Risorgimento has played a central role. Like the experience of the French Revolution or German unification, the Risorgimento is considered to be a defining moment in Italy’s history, the period when Italy becomes a ‘nation’ and enters the ‘modern’ world. Through the Risorgimento, the modern Italian state acquires its ‘founding fathers’ (Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi) and its political ideals (liberalism, nationalism, republicanism). Conceptually, the Risorgimento has also been crucial to Italian historiography. It describes a number of different transformations-the collapse of the ancien régime and the development of a parliamentary system, the breakdown of traditional rural society and the birth of modern, urban life, the transition from a feudal to a capitalist economy and the replacement of local or regional identities by a single national culture-all of which have been central to present-day understanding of historical change. The political, social, economic and cultural experiences of Italians from 1815 to 1945 (and, arguably, beyond) are explained, interpreted and assessed on the basis of these ‘modernising’ processes.
