2022.06.27意大利最佳指南的六本书

shiyi18

Economist Reads | Italy
Our Rome correspondent on the six books that serve as the best guide to Italy
The country can be infuriatingly difficult to understand
TOPSHOT - Planes of the Italian Air Force aerobatic unit Frecce Tricolori (Tricolor Arrows) spread smoke with the colors of the Italian flag over the Unknown Soldier monument at the end of the swearing-in ceremony of the Italian re-elected 13th president Sergio Mattarella, at the parliament in Rome's Montecitorio palace on February 3, 2022. - After Italy's bickering political parties failed to agree on a candidate for his successor, and the threat of snap elections reared its head, Mattarella finally agreed for a second term on January 29, 2022. (Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP) (Photo by VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images)
Jun 27th 2022 | ROME

Share

Give
This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit our collection to discover “The Economist reads” guides, guest essays and more seasonal distractions.

Italy is enjoying a rare period of good, and relatively stable, government under the former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi. But even when its politics are tumultuous and its economy is languishing, Italy exerts a special allure in the English-speaking world and beyond: superficially as accessible as it is delightful, and yet tinged with intrigue and mystery. Here are six books in English that offer the reader keys to understanding a country in which appearances are often deceptive.

A Concise History of Italy. By Christopher Duggan. Cambridge University Press; 360 pages; £19.99


How, for a start, do you write a history spanning 16 centuries of a country that did not exist as a state until little more than a 150 years ago? The single most important thing about Italy is that it is both very young—younger than America—and very old (things that have a bearing on the outlook of today’s Italians happened even before 400ad, when Professor Duggan opens his narrative). First published in 1994, his breakneck canter though the story of the peninsula copes more skilfully with the challenge than any other, emphasising the fractured nature of pre-unification (and, indeed, post-unification) Italy right at the outset and giving disproportionate attention to the period since the birth of the state we know today. The latest revised and updated edition, from 2013, is perhaps the best introduction to a complex and contradictory nation.

The Italians. By Luigi Barzini. Penguin. Touchstone; 384 pages; $18.99. Penguin; £12.99

The same claim could also be made for this pioneering venture in a field that has since come to be termed cultural psychology. It first appeared in 1964 and some of its references and examples have since been outdated by the changes that have taken place in Italian life. But Luigi Barzini set out to capture the essence of a supposedly unchanging italianità and for the most part he drew on history and language to make his points. Many are as telling now as ever. Few who know his compatriots would quibble with his judgment that “Familiarity never breeds contempt in them” or that, among them, “credulity is the unmentionable sin”. For evidence of his view that “Italians always loved a good entertainer who could stir their emotions and divert them from themselves”, look no further than at the last book on this list and marvel at Barzini’s prescience.


More Summer reads
• How Super Mario became a global cultural icon
• What if the Ottoman Empire had not collapsed?
• Hayek, Popper and Schumpeter formulated a response to tyranny
• Our Free Exchange columnist considers just how Dickensian China is
•Six guides to biology as seen at different scales

An Italian Education. By Tim Parks. Grove Atlantic; 352 pages; $18. Vintage; £10.99

Like the late Luigi Barzini, Tim Parks is an insider-outsider, well suited to explaining the idiosyncrasies of one culture to another. The Italian spent much of his early life in America. Mr Parks, a Briton, married an Italian and, although they later divorced, he has lived since in his adopted land. “An Italian Education” deals with the upbringing of his three children. It has less of the wry humour that made his first work of non-fiction, “Italian Neighbours”, such a success. But it is a more rigorous, and enlightening attempt to isolate the factors—the childhood events and omissions, the parental (and, scarcely less importantly, the grandparental) authorisations and refusals—that go into shaping the outlook of an Italian. Like all of Mr Parks’s skilfully crafted works, it is a delight to read.

Naples ’44. A World War II Diary of Occupied Italy. By Norman Lewis. Da Capo Press; 192 pages; $15.99. Published in Britain “Naples ’44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth”; Eland Books; £12.99

It took more than 30 years for Norman Lewis to dig out, edit, shape and publish the diary he kept while serving with British military intelligence in southern Italy after its “liberation” by the Allies. Yet “Naples ’44” has come to be regarded as the greatest of his many fine works. Humorous and harrowing by turns, it somehow contrives never to condescend to its subjects, the people of Naples—famished and humiliated yet possessed of astounding reserves of resilience, ingenuity and good humour. Lewis’s masterpiece is also as good a starting point as any for someone attempting to get to grips with modern Italy. The depths of misery it chronicles make Italy’s subsequent resurrection, albeit helped by America’s Marshall Plan, seem yet more miraculous.

The Archipelago: Italy since 1945. By John Foot. Bloomsbury Publishing; 496 pages; $17.99 and £12.99

Arguments could be made for other histories of post-war Italy, notably the late Paul Ginsborg’s splendid, two-volume series: “A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988” and “Italy and its Discontents. 1980-2001”. But they are unapologetically scholarly works, and though John Foot, the professor of modern Italian history at the University of Bristol, is no intellectual slouch, his account is one that non-academic readers will find easier to digest. By its author’s own account, it is “an eclectic history, linked to my own preferences, experiences and passions”. In a single chapter, he manages to wind together the invention of Padania, the nation conjured from thin air by the Northern League; the cult of Padre Pio; and the scarcely less fervent ones that surround the cyclist Marco Pantani and the writer Oriana Fallaci. “The Archipelago” also has the merit of bringing its readers almost to the present day.

The Sack of Rome: Media + Money + Celebrity = Power = Silvio Berlusconi. By Alexander Stille. Penguin; 384 pages; $18.00

At last—you might think—an American author, albeit the son of an Italian journalist. It is remarkable that so few good books about Italy have come from the country whose inhabitants love it more than any other. Alexander Stille, who has also written books on Italy’s fascist dictatorship and the Mafia, provides an exception to the rule in this perceptive and illuminating study of Italy’s most successful post-war politician. Clownish, crooked and with a deeply troubling past that included associations with Cosa Nostra, Silvio Berlusconi nevertheless became the longest-serving prime minister of the Italian Republic. Many Italians are reluctant to acknowledge it, but his influence on their society has been enduring. And, as Mr Stille foresaw, he pioneered a style of populist politics that others, including Donald Trump, would later embrace. As our review of “The Sack of Rome” noted, its publication in 2006 was ill-timed. Mr Berlusconi had just been voted out and, we opined, “at 69, his chances of returning are slim.” In fact, he was back two years later and today, at age 85, he still leads a party that could decide the nature of Italy’s next government.


Our Italy and Vatican correspondent, based in Rome, is the author of his own book on Italy.

The Italians. By John Hooper. Viking; 336 pages; $19.00. Allen Lane; £9.99

Corrupt, infuriating and beloved: it is not easy to explain Italy. A new take on Luigi Barzini’s 1964 classic of the same title. It featured in the bestseller lists of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. The Financial Times said: “His book is both valuable and readable, a lucid and elegantly flowing description of a people.”




经济学人读物｜意大利
我们的罗马记者介绍了作为意大利最佳指南的六本书
这个国家可能是令人气愤的难以理解的。
TOPSHOT - 2022年2月3日，在罗马Montecitorio宫的议会，意大利空军特技部队Frecce Tricolori（三色箭）的飞机在无名战士纪念碑上散发出带有意大利国旗颜色的烟雾，这是意大利第13任总统Sergio Mattarella宣誓就职仪式的最后。- 在意大利争吵不休的各政党未能就其继任者的候选人达成一致意见，并出现快速选举的威胁后，马塔雷拉终于在2022年1月29日同意连任。(Photo by Vincenzo PINTO / AFP) (Photo by VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images)
2022年6月27日｜罗马


这篇文章是我们夏季读物系列的一部分。请访问我们的收藏，以发现 "经济学人读物 "指南、特邀文章和更多季节性的分心。

在欧洲中央银行前行长马里奥-德拉吉(Mario Draghi)的领导下，意大利正在享受一段罕见的良好和相对稳定的政府时期。但是，即使在其政治动荡和经济萎靡不振的时候，意大利在英语世界和其他国家也有一种特殊的诱惑力：表面上看，它既平易近人，又令人愉快，而且还带有阴谋和神秘的色彩。这里有六本英文书，它们为读者提供了了解这个表面上经常具有欺骗性的国家的钥匙。

意大利简明史》。作者：克里斯托弗-杜根。剑桥大学出版社；360页；19.99英镑


首先，你如何写一部跨越16个世纪的历史，而这个国家直到150多年前才作为一个国家存在？关于意大利最重要的一点是，它既非常年轻--比美国还年轻--又非常古老（对今天的意大利人的前景有影响的事情甚至发生在公元400年之前，即杜根教授开始叙述的时候）。他在1994年首次出版的《半岛的故事》中，比其他作品更巧妙地应对了这一挑战，从一开始就强调了统一前（乃至统一后）意大利的分裂性质，并对我们今天所知的国家诞生后的时期给予了极大的关注。2013年的最新修订和更新版，也许是对这个复杂而矛盾的民族的最好介绍。

意大利人》。作者：路易吉-巴尔齐尼。企鹅出版社。Touchstone；384页；18.99美元。企鹅；12.99英镑

同样的说法也可以用在这个后来被称为文化心理学的领域中的先驱者身上。该书首次出版于1964年，由于意大利生活发生了变化，其中的一些参考资料和例子已经过时了。但路易吉-巴尔齐尼试图捕捉一个所谓不变的意大利人的本质，在大多数情况下，他利用历史和语言来表达他的观点。许多观点现在和以前一样有说服力。很少有了解他的同胞的人会质疑他的判断："在他们身上，熟悉永远不会产生蔑视"，或者在他们中间，"轻信是不可提及的罪恶"。为了证明他的观点，即 "意大利人总是喜欢一个好的艺人，他能激起他们的情绪，使他们从自己身上转移开来"，请看本名单上的最后一本书，并对巴尔齐尼的预见性表示赞叹。


更多夏季读物
- 超级马里奥如何成为全球文化标志
- 如果奥斯曼帝国没有垮台会怎样？
- 哈耶克、波普尔和熊彼特制定了应对暴政的措施
- 我们的《自由交流》专栏作家认为中国有多大的狄更斯风格
-从不同尺度看生物学的六大指南

意大利的教育。作者：Tim Parks。Grove Atlantic；352页；18美元。 Vintage；10.99英镑

与已故的路易吉-巴尔齐尼一样，蒂姆-帕克斯是一个内行外行的人，很适合向另一种文化解释其特质。这位意大利人早年大部分时间在美国生活。帕克斯先生是英国人，与意大利人结婚，尽管他们后来离婚了，但他一直生活在自己的故乡。"意大利教育》讲述了他三个孩子的成长过程。这本书没有使他的第一部非虚构作品《意大利邻居》获得如此成功的那种诙谐幽默。但它是一个更严格、更有启发性的尝试，试图分离出各种因素--童年的事件和遗漏、父母（以及几乎不那么重要的祖父母）的授权和拒绝--来塑造一个意大利人的面貌。就像帕克斯先生的所有作品一样，这本书让人读起来很愉快。

44年的那不勒斯。二战中被占领的意大利的日记。作者：诺曼-刘易斯。Da Capo出版社；192页；15.99美元。在英国出版的《那不勒斯44年：意大利迷宫中的情报官员》；Eland Books；12.99英镑

诺曼-刘易斯花了30多年时间挖掘、编辑、塑造和出版他在意大利南部被盟军 "解放 "后为英国军事情报部门服务时的日记。然而，《44年的那不勒斯》已被认为是他众多优秀作品中最伟大的一部。这部作品既幽默又令人痛心，但它却设法不屈服于它的主题，即那不勒斯的人民--贫穷和屈辱，但却拥有令人震惊的复原力、智慧和幽默感。对于试图了解现代意大利的人来说，刘易斯的杰作也是一个很好的起点。它所记录的苦难的深度使意大利后来的复活，尽管是在美国的马歇尔计划的帮助下，显得更加神奇。

群岛：1945年以来的意大利。作者：约翰-福特。布鲁姆斯伯里出版社；496页；17.99美元和12.99英镑

可以为战后意大利的其他历史提出论据，特别是已故保罗-金斯伯格的辉煌的两卷系列。"当代意大利史》。1943-1988年社会与政治》和《意大利及其不满情绪》。1980-2001". 但它们是不折不扣的学术著作，尽管布里斯托尔大学的现代意大利历史教授约翰-福特（John Foot）在知识上并不逊色，但他的叙述会让非学术界的读者觉得更容易消化。按照作者自己的说法，这是 "一部折衷的历史，与我自己的喜好、经验和激情有关"。在一个章节中，他成功地将帕达尼亚的发明--北方联盟凭空变出的国家；皮奥神父的崇拜；以及围绕自行车手马可-潘塔尼和作家奥里亚纳-法拉奇的几乎不那么狂热的崇拜缠绕在一起。"群岛》的优点还在于它几乎把读者带到了今天。

罗马被洗劫。媒体+金钱+名人=权力=西尔维奥-贝卢斯科尼。作者：亚历山大-斯蒂尔。企鹅出版社；384页；18.00美元

最后--你可能认为--一个美国作家，尽管是一个意大利记者的儿子。难能可贵的是，关于意大利的好书很少来自这个居民比其他国家更爱它的国家。亚历山大-斯蒂尔也写过关于意大利法西斯独裁统治和黑手党的书，他在这本关于意大利战后最成功的政治家的敏锐而富有启发性的研究中提供了一个例外。西尔维奥-贝卢斯科尼是个小丑，是个骗子，有着令人不安的过去，包括与科萨诺斯特拉的关系，但他仍然成为意大利共和国任期最长的总理。许多意大利人不愿意承认这一点，但他对意大利社会的影响是持久的。而且，正如斯蒂尔先生所预见的那样，他开创了一种民粹主义政治的风格，包括唐纳德-特朗普在内的其他人后来都接受了这种风格。正如我们对《洗劫罗马》的评论所指出的，该书在2006年出版时时机不对。当时贝卢斯科尼先生刚刚被投票淘汰，我们认为，"69岁的他回归的可能性很小"。事实上，两年后他又回来了，今天，85岁的他仍然领导着一个可能决定意大利下届政府性质的政党。


我们驻罗马的意大利和梵蒂冈记者，是他自己关于意大利的书的作者。

意大利人》。作者：约翰-胡珀。维京人；336页；19.00美元。Allen Lane；9.99英镑

腐败、令人气愤和受人爱戴：要解释意大利并不容易。对路易吉-巴尔齐尼1964年的同名经典作品进行了新的诠释。它出现在《洛杉矶时报》和《华盛顿邮报》的畅销书排行榜上。金融时报》说。"他的书既有价值又有可读性，是对一个民族清晰而优雅的描述"。