Identity Crisis in Italy

Abstract

Spurred by ongoing conflicts between city-states and the nobility, unification for Italy was a gradual and difficult process. While such divisions shortly subsided to allow the peninsula to become unified, Italy has always been troubled by the difficulties of cultivating a national identity. Throughout the past and in the present, Italy has been a nation of division. But recently this division has become deeper because of the growing differences between the various parts of the country caused by unresolved political, institutional, economic and security problems. The need for academic discourse on the division encouraged scholars to cooperate and identify the most important causes and elements of the Italian identity crisis such as the political crisis caused by feelings of lack, instability or injustice, the economic and financial crises leading to the erosion of social cohesion and the insecurity linked to immigration. This book presents the result of this dialogue.