The Italians: A Full-Length Portrait Featuring Their Manners and Morals

luigi barzini

In this consummate portrait of the Italian people, bestselling author, publisher, journalist, and politician Luigi Barzini delves deeply into the Italian national character, discovering both its great qualities and its imperfections. Barzini is startlingly frank as he examines "the two Italies": the one that created and nurtured such luminaries as Dante Alighieri, St. Thomas of Aquino, and Leonardo da Vinci; the other, feeble and prone to catastrophe, backward in political action if not in thought, "invaded, ravaged, sacked, and humiliated in every century." Deeply ambivalent, Barzini approaches his task with a combination of love, hate, disillusion, and affectionate paternalism, resulting in a completely original, thoughtful, and probing picture of his countrymen.

Genres italyhistorynonfictiontravelitalian literaturesociologyculturaleuropean historyliteraturecultural studies

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1964

Places

italy,

This edition

Format: 352 pages, Paperback
Published: July 3, 1996 by Touchstone
ISBN: 9780684825007
ASIN: 0684825007
Language: English

About the author

luigi barzini

Luigi Barzini was an Italian journalist, writer and politician most famous for his 1964 book The Italians, delving deeply into the Italian national character and introducing many Anglo-Saxon readers to Italian life and culture.

Son of Luigi Barzini (1874-1947)