The New Italians

by Charles Richards (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $3.25

  Italy has seduced generations with its sunshine, landscapes, art treasures and the warmth and vitality of its people, devoted to style, sensuality and the pleasures of life. The reality is less rosy. Italy is as exasperating as it is enchanting. Appalling public services, a rotten political class, the creeping tentacles of the Mafia, the all-forgiving Mother Church and infinitely indulgent `mamma' have long prevented Italians facing up to their collective failings. In `The New Italians', journalist Charles Richards paints a compelling group portrait of the country and people, spanning football to Freemansonry, kickbacks to kidnappings. He concludes that however much things change, the Italians will remain essentially the same, and pull through with their customary `brio'.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1994

  $3.25

  Generations of visitors to Italy have been seduced by the sensuality and vivaciousness of the people, by the great beauty of the landscape, by the glorious food and by the finest art treasures in the world. Italy is all of that, yet it also has a political class that is rotten to the core, and half the country is in thrall to organized crime. In this timely and perceptive portrait, Charles Richards looks at the Italy behind appearances. His authoritative study examines how Italy functions, how society binds the disparate parts and how the economy works. Charles Richards considers what it was both in the Italian system and in the Italians themselves, with their underdeveloped sense of individual responsibility, that permitted the ruling establishment to partake in the wholesale rape of the country. The book is both a celebration of the vitality and industriousness, elegance and good humour of the Italians, and a frank examination of their failings, of which no one gives a harder judgement than the Italians themselves. Charles Richards spoke to child kidnappers, Mafia judges, immigrant labourers and clergy in the front line against bandits in the North. Richards found Italy in a state of flux, with great uncertainty about the future. But his conclusion is that however serious a mess the Italians are in, they have an unrivalled capacity for making the most of any given predicament.