Historian John Foot will present his latest book The Archipelago. Italy since 1945 in conversation with Philip Cooke.
Italy emerged from World War Two in ruins. Divided, invaded and economically broken, it was a nation that some claimed had ceased to exist. By the 1960s, Italy could boast the fastest growing economy in the world, as rural society disappeared almost overnight.
In The Archipelago, Foot chronicles Italy’s tumultuous history from the post-war to the present. He examines both the corrupt and celebrated sides of the country: from the silent assimilation of fascists into society after 1945 to the troubling reign of Silvio Berlusconi, and from the artistic peak of neorealist cinema to the celebration of Italy’s 150th birthday in 2011. While often portrayed as a failed state on the margins of Europe, Italy has instead been at the centre of innovation and change – a political laboratory. Through stories of trials, TV programmes, songs and football matches, moments of violence and beauty, epochal social transformation and suffocating continuities, this new history tells a fascinating story of a country always marked by scandal but with the constant ability to re-invent itself.
An updated and revised paperback edition of the book will be out in June, while an Italian edition will be out in October.
John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History in the Department of Italian, University of Bristol. His most recent publications include Modern Italy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and The Man who Closed the Asylums. Franco Basaglia and the Revolution in Mental Health Care (Verso, 2015) which came out in 2014 as La Repubblica dei Matti. Franco Basaglia e la psichiatria radicale in Italia, 1961-1978(Feltrinelli). The Archipelago. Italy Since 1945 is his latest book.
Philip Cooke is Professor of Italian History and Culture at the University of Strathclyde. His research focuses on the long-term impact of the Italian Resistance movement and, more generally, on 20th Century Italian social and cultural history. His most recent books are The Legacy of the Italian Resistance (New York, 2011) and Ending terrorism in Italy (Routledge, 2012). Philip Cooke is chair of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI).
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