Book reviews

Luciano Guerci and Giuseppe Ricuperati (eds) 1998 Il coraggio della ragione. Franco Venturi intellettuale e storico cosmopolita (Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi promosso da Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Università degli Studi di Torino, Accademia delle Scienze, Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria, Torino, 12–14 dicembre 1996) (Turin: Fondazione Luigi Einaudi), pp. 1–497, ISBN 88–430–1129–4.

Stefano Levati ( 1997) La nobiltà del lavoro. Negozianti e banchieri a Milano tra Ancien Regime e Restaurazione (Milan: Franco Angeli), pp. 1–320, 40,000 lire.

Guido Formigoni (1998) L'Italia dei cattolici: Fede e nazione dal Risorgimento alla Repubblica (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–176, 22,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06314–5 paperback.

Albert Schram ( 1997) Railways and the Formation of the Italian State in the Nineteenth Century, ’Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 1–164, Bibliography and Index, $59.95, ISBN 0–521–57159–6 hardback.

Catherine Brice (1989) Monumentanté publique et politique à Rome. Le Vittoriano (Rome: École Française de Rome), pp. 1–439.

Hans Woller ( 1997) I conti con il fascismo: L'epurazione in Italia 1943–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–603, 50,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06198–3 paperback.

Maria Stone ( 1998) The Patron State: Culture and Politics in Fascist Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), pp. 1–334, ISBN 0–691–05999–3 paperback.

Angelo Ventrone (1996) La cittadinanza repubblicana. Forma‐partito e identità nazionale alle origini della democrazia italiana (1943–1948) (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–305, 38,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–05508–8 paperback.

R. J. B. Bosworth and Patrizia Dogliani (eds) (1999) kalian Fascism: History, Memory and Representation (Houndmills and New York: Macmillan/St Martin's Press), pp. 1–245, ISBN 0–312–21717.

Ernesto Galli della Loggia (1998) L'identità italiana (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–171, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–066 12–8 paperback.

Aldino Monti (1998) I braccianti (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–161, 18,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06582–2 paperback.

Giuliana Gemelli (ed.) (1998) Scuole di management Orìgini e primi sviluppi delle business schools in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–543, ISBN 88–15–06297–1 paperback.

Valeria Fargion (1997) Geografia della cittadinanza sociale in Italia (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–351, 42,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06127–4 paperback.

Umberto Gentiloni Silveri (1998) L'Italia e la nuova frontiera: Stati Uniti e centrosinistra 1958–1965 (Bologna: Il Mulino), pp. 1–343, 45,000 lire, ISBN 88–15–06282–3 paperback.     

White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War

This article examines miscegenation fears in Britain in the period after World War I, noting three dominant discourses: that miscegenation leads inevitably to violence between white and black men (focusing on the 1919 race riots), that these relationships involve sexual immorality (analysing the 1920 ‘Black Horror on the Rhine’, a case involving a white woman, a Chinese man and drugs and a trial of a white woman for killing her Egyptian husband) and that miscegenation has ‘disastrous’ procreative consequences. It is suggested that miscegenation stood as one British boundary marker, separating the nationally acceptable and the nationally threatening. The parties concerned – the ‘primitive’ man of colour, the white woman of a ‘low type’ and the ‘misfit’ offspring – were each pathologised in terms of their deviant sexuality. Yet interracial relationships did not decrease, quite the contrary. The move in Britain towards a more racially mixed community began in the years after the Great War, when certain white women made choices against the norms of respectable femininity.     

When the personal becomes political: using legal reform to combat violence against women in Ethiopia

This article focuses on Ethiopia's first civil society organisation, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), which has been campaigning for legal reform to secure women's rights and address violence against women. Implementing legal changes to benefit women in Ethiopia is impeded by difficulties in using the formal legal system, by poverty and deeply embedded gender inequalities, by plural legal systems, and by entrenched cultural norms. However, the article argues that the most significant challenge is the increasing degree of authoritarianism in Ethiopian state politics, that this is crucial in determining the space for activism, and that this shapes the successful implementation of legal change. The research shows how women's activism around personal rights challenges public/private and personal/political boundaries and can be seen as a political threat by governments in contexts where democracy and rule of the law are not embedded, leading to repression of women's activism and hindering the implementation of measures to protect women's rights when states become more authoritarian. Little is known empirically about the impact of democratisation on the implementation of measures to protect women's rights in Africa. This article shows how the emergence of democracy and legal reform intersects with the emergence of women's rights, especially with respect to gender-based violence. It shows how trying to secure women's personal right to be free from violence through the law is profoundly political and argues that the nature of democratisation really matters in terms of the implementation of measures such as legal changes designed to protect women's rights.     

An unsettling integration: Immigrant lives and work in Palermo

Giuseppe Garibaldi was the most enduring political hero of nineteenth‐century Italy. His political image was inspired by both the romantic movement and religion and, in turn, inspired a new kind of charismatic popular politics. The first part of this article explores the sources and assesses the impact of the cult of Garibaldi during the Risorgimento. The second part examines the use made of Garibaldi's image after Italian unification and, especially, after his death. It finds that government attempts to glorify Garibaldi were relatively unsuccessful while the parallel, republican cult of Garibaldi had a considerable impact. Thus, Garibaldi's extraordinary popularity highlighted the failed official ‘nationalization’ of Italians. At the same time, support for Garibaldi points to the emergence of an alternative sense of Italian national identity