ABSTRACT
Traditionally, many historians have commenced their interpretations of Italian history with discussions of geography; they frequently read the nation’s development as “determined by geopolitics” (Bosworth 1996:3; Serra, 1984). In his classic survey of Italian history for example, Denis Mack Smith (1959) opens with a section entitled ‘A Geographical Expression’ which claims that:
Until 1860 the word Italy was used not so much for a nation as for a peninsula, and [Austrian Chancellor] Metternich wrote disparagingly of this ‘geographical expression’. It is therefore with geography that Italian history must begin. Too often have poverty and political backwardness been blamed on mis-rule and foreign exploitation, instead of on climate and the lack of natural resources. We need not go so far as to believe that the destinies of a nation are altogether shaped by its wealth and position …but such characteristics are bound to define the scope of a nation within certain limits. It has always been historically important that the Apennines divide Italy from top to bottom and that the Alps cut her off from the rest of Europe; mountains may not be removed, even by faith.
