In this Book

summary
Is Italy il bel paese—the beautiful country—where tourists spend their vacations looking for art, history, and scenery? Or is it a land whose beauty has been cursed by humanity’s greed and nature’s cruelty? The answer is largely a matter of narrative and the narrator’s vision of Italy. The fifteen essays in Nature and History in Modern Italy investigate that nation’s long experience in managing domesticated rather than wild natures and offer insight into these conflicting visions. Italians shaped their land in the most literal sense, producing the landscape, sculpting its heritage, embedding memory in nature, and rendering the two different visions inseparable. The interplay of Italy’s rich human history and its dramatic natural diversity is a subject with broad appeal to a wide range of readers.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title/Cover Page
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Illustrations
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Foreword
  2. pp. xi-xiii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. xv-xvi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Il Bel Paese: An Introduction
  2. pp. 1-11
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Foundations
  2. p. 13
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 1: The Distinctive Character of Italian Environmental History
  2. pp. 15-32
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 2: Upside-Down Landscapes: Seismicity and Seismic Disasters in Italy
  2. pp. 33-55
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 3: Moving Ground: Vesuvius and the Nola Mudslides of the Nineteenth Century
  2. pp. 56-69
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 4: Environmental Imperialism in Sardinia: Pesticides and Politics in the Struggle against Malaria
  2. pp. 70-86
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Commons and Forests
  2. p. 87
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 5: The Decline of the Commons and the Environmental Balance in Early Modern Italy
  2. pp. 89-107
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 6: Forest Visions in Early Modern Italy
  2. pp. 108-125
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 7: Environmental Heritage of a Past Cultural Landscape: Alder Woods in the Upper Aveto Valley of the Northwestern Apennines
  2. pp. 126-140
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 8: Act Locally, Think Nationally: A Brief History of Access Rights and Environmental Conflicts in Fascist Italy
  2. pp. 141-158
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Pollution, Industry, and Urban Environment
  2. p. 159
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 9: Dealing with Industrial Pollution in Italy, 1880–1940
  2. pp. 161-179
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 10: Petrochemical Modernity in Sicily
  2. pp. 180-194
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 11: The Seveso Disaster Legacy
  2. pp. 195-211
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Landscape, Culture, and Environmentalism
  2. p. 213
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 12: A “Natural” Capitalism: Water and the Making of the Italian Industrial Landscape
  2. pp. 215-230
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 13: Nationalizing the Mountains: Natural and Political Landscapes in World War I
  2. pp. 231-250
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Chapter 14: Nature Preservation and Protection in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Italy, 1880–1950
  2. pp. 251-267
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Selected Bibliography
  2. pp. 269-277
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contributors
  2. pp. 279-282
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 283-295
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.