The culmination of decades of nationalist aspiration and cynical Realpolitik, the Second War of Italian Unification saw Italy transformed from a patchwork of minor states dominated by the Habsburg Austrians into a unified kingdom under the Piedmontese House of Savoy. Unlike many existing accounts, which approach the events of 1859–61 from a predominantly French perspective, this study draws upon a huge breadth of sources to examine the conflict as a critical event in Italian history. A concise explanation of the origins of the war is followed by a wide-ranging survey of the forces deployed and the nature and course of the fighting – on land and at sea – and the consequences for those involved are investigated. This is a groundbreaking study of a conflict that was of critical significance not only for Italian history but also for the development of 19th-century warfare.

This book introduces the reader to the relationship between the Italian national movement, achieved by the Risorgimento, and the Italian unification in 1860. These themes are discussed in detail and related to the broader European theatre. Covering the literary, cultural, religious and political history of the period, Beales and Biagini show Italy struggled towards nation state status on all fronts. The new edition has been thoroughly rewritten. It also contains a number of new documents. In addition, all the most up to date research of the last 20 years has been incorporated. The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy remains the major text on nineteenth century Italy. The long introduction and useful footnotes will be of real assistance to those interested in Italian unification.

In the 1840s, post-Napoleonic Italy was 'a geographical expression' – not a country, but a patchwork of states, divided between the Austrian-occupied north, and a Spanish-descended Bourbon monarchy, who ruled the south from Naples. Two decades later, it was a nation united under a single king and government, thanks largely to the efforts of the Kings of Sardinia and Piedmont, and the revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. This book, the first of a two-part series on the armies that fought in the Italian Wars of Unification, examines the Piedmontese and Neapolitan armies that fought in the north and south of the peninsula. Illustrated with prints, early photos and detailed commissioned artwork, this book explores the history, organization, and appearance of the armies that fought to unite the Italian peninsula under one flag.

In the 1840s, Italy was a patchwork of states. The North was ruled by the Austrian Empire, the South by the Spanish-descended monarchy of the Two Sicilies. Over the next two decades, after wars led by Savoy/Piedmont and volunteers such as Garibaldi, an independent Kingdom of Italy emerged. These conflicts saw foreign interventions and shifting alliances among minor states, and attracted a variety of local and foreign volunteers. This second volume in a two part series covers the armies of the Papal States; the duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Modena; the republics of Rome and San Marco (Venice) and the transitional Kingdom of Sicily; and the various volunteer movements. These varied armies and militias wore a wide variety of highly colourful uniforms which are brought to life in stunning, specially commissioned, full colour artwork from Giuseppe Rava.

This book examines the fascinating origins and the complex evolution of Italian national citizenship from the unification of Italy in 1861 until just after World War II. It does so by exploring the civic history of Italians in the peninsula, and of Italy's colonial and overseas native populations. Using little-known documentation, Sabina Donati delves into the policies, debates, and formal notions of Italian national citizenship with a view to grasping the multi-faceted, evolving, and often contested vision(s) of italianità. In her study, these disparate visions are brought into conversation with contemporary scholarship pertaining to alienhood, racial thinking, migration, expansionism, and gender. As the first English-language book on the modern history of Italian citizenship, this work highlights often-overlooked precedents, continuities, and discontinuities within and between liberal and fascist Italies. It invites the reader to compare the Italian experiences with other European ones, such as French, British, and German citizenship traditions.

A concise history of Italy from the fall of the Roman empire in the west to the present day.