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"Since 1870 Italy has been a country with a single more or less sovereign power (my qualification refers to the pope, not to the Republic of San Marino) and its history has been the story of central government, of regional reactions and regional influences within the framework of central government, and of a foreign policy backed
by a single national army. No wonder that in preparation for this historians were active in proclaiming Italian unity and no wonder that since 1870 they have been writing Italian history in the way French or English historians write their history. Yet this approach does not in fact correspond with the realities. No history of Italy can be written on the French or British model which does not seriously distort the true picture. Thus, in a sentence, the basic problem of Italian history is that before the nineteenth century there-is no Italian history, at least not in the same sense as we talk of English or French history." |
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