ABSTRACT
It is perhaps true that history is to a great extent written by the victors. It has already been suggested that until comparatively recently most Italian nineteenth-century history was written by sympathizers of Cavour and the moderate party who succeeded in imposing their solution to the Italian Question. But even in the realm of political speculation there were movements in nineteenth-century Italy which had little or nothing to do with the struggle for independence and unity. Some of them – like socialism – were to be more important after 1870. Some of them – like the Hegelianism which characterized certain Neapolitan thinkers in the early part of the period covered by this book – never quite connected with the main currents of Italian nationalism.
