In 1864
Francesco Crispi, twice prime minister, described representative democracy as an invitation to division and civil unrest and in the aftermath of the First World War a future minister, Giovanni Gentile, denied that democratic ideals had been part of the Risorgimento.
The author, who is an assistant professor of History at Brigham Young University, begins by analyzing the theories of political figures such as
Francesco Crispi and Luigi Einaudi.
While few academic readers need to have the Code Napoleon explained to them, or to be told who Alphonse Daudet, le general Boulanger or Jules Grevy were, the names
Francesco Crispi and le lieutenant Chapuis (for example) are less widely known.
Christopher Duggan ("
Francesco Crispi's Exile in London, 1855" 436-49) describes the three great benefits of Crispi's stay in England: he met and befriended Mazzini, he had time for intense study, and he gained experience "at first hand of a country that he was to admire enormously for the rest of his life" (436-37).
Gradually we discover that high-minded service - a praiseworthy quality exemplified by such notable figures as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, and the not-so-heroic
Francesco Crispi - thrives in a cultural milieu that makes it inextricably bound to and, in some way, dependent upon the self-serving interests of the scum of society.
Francesco Crispi: From Nation to Nationalism by Christopher Duggan (Oxford University Press, 65 [pounds sterling]) sheds light on the rise of Fascism and the period of the Italian Risorgimento, and one of the characters crucially involved in the politics of the period.