Sentimental Economy
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In a warm, perceptive essay that touches on economics, fashion, literature, and politics, the Strega Prize–winning author of Story of My People reflects on the seismic shifts of 2020 and the diverse ways we’re adapting.
Attempting to make sense of the incredible upheaval of 2020—from the devastating impact of COVID-19 to the sudden loss of his father—Edoardo Nesi considers the changing global economy and its effect on our lives. He shares the stories of Alberto Magelli, a small textile entrepreneur; Livia Firth, a prominent advocate for sustainability; Elisa Martelli, a young Sangiovese winemaker; Enrico Giovannini, a leading economist and statistician; Rino Pratesi, a proud butcher from the heart of Tuscany; and more.
From the overworked to the unemployed, we’re all grappling with difficult questions about our current disorienting world: Will we ever feel healthy again, and what will it take to regain “normality?” What does progress mean today? Have science and technology let us down? What will the increased prevalence of remote working mean for our cities, and for our lifestyles generally? Deftly weaving together the personal and the economic, Nesi takes us on a fascinating journey to understanding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Italian novelist Nesi (Story of My People) examines in this bittersweet book-length essay the collapse of the 20th-century dream of economic prosperity from inside the early Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdowns made countries and citizens reconsider what's economically "necessary," Nesi writes, and rather than weighing such economic questions as "just numbers, empty percentages," he sees them as "paintings that depict both the country and us." He finds both fable and warning in the example of fashion. An industry that once produced reliable textiles and made Italy glamorous (and which his family and the author has worked in) has given way to "fast-fashion glad rags" produced in sweatshops as small European factories—like his own, once his father's—shut down: "I'm the son and heir to a ruinous collapse," he writes. As he critiques the notion of relentless progress, Nesi identifies his nostalgia as being really for "that savage spirit of innovation" in a time when "an immense future of boundless potential" seemed possible, as in The Jetsons and the 1939 World's Fair. Nesi's perfectly weighted, winding sentences are moving, and his unique perspective—informed by conversations with Italian luminaries as well as trips to Florence or the beach—add beauty to the melancholic tone. This elegy for a vanished future captivates.
