Italy and Its Discontents 1980-2001
Family, Civil Society, State

Contemporary Italy strongly mirrors Britain - the countries have roughly the same extent, population size and GNP - and yet they are fantastically different. The author sees this difference as most fundamentally clear in the role of the family and it is the family which is at the heart of Italian politics and business.

In this long-awaited book (already a major bestseller in Italy) Ginsborg has created a fascinating, sophisticated and definitive account of how Italy has coped, or failed to cope, with the past two decades. Contemporary Italy strongly mirrors Britain - the countries have roughly the same extent, population size and GNP - and yet they are fantastically different. Ginsborg sees this difference as most fundamentally clear in the role of the family and it is the family which is at the heart of Italian politics and business. Anyone wishing to understand contemporary Italy will find it essential to have this enormously attractive and intelligent book.

The Italian economy: constraints and achievements
the social hierarchies of a prosperous nation
families and consumption
civil society and mass culture
a blocked political system 1980-92
corruption and the Mafia
the state within and the state without
denoument, 1992-4
from Berlusconi to Berlusconi, 1994-2001.