![Building a Civil Society](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![Building a Civil Society](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
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Building a Civil Society
Associations, Public Life, and the Origins of Modern Italy
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- 64,99 €
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- 64,99 €
Publisher Description
The most passionate advocates of Italy’s unification in the nineteenth century possessed an almost limitless faith in the benefits of civic association. They also shared a common concern: once Italian unification was achieved and various freedoms were established, would ordinary Italians naturally become responsible, progressive citizens – especially after centuries of foreign rule, regional division, and economic decline? Most unification advocates doubted that their fellow citizens could form a modern, progressive civil society on their own, or that a vibrant association life would develop from the ground up.
Building a Civil Society is the first book-length English-language study of associational life in nineteenth-century Italy. Drawing on extensive research in published and unpublished documents – including associational records, newspapers, periodicals, government documents, guidebooks, exhibition catalogues, memoirs, and private letters – Steven C. Soper provides a complex account of Italian liberalism during Europe’s age of association. His study also raises important questions about the role that associations play in emerging democracies.