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An ideal volume for lovers of Venice and architecture aficionados, combining in-depth history of this singular city with more than 100 color photographs and maps. Of Venice's many majestic spaces, none is as evocative and significant as the Piazza San Marco. An authoritative account of the development of the entire piazza complex, through which unfolds the history of the Republic in general, The Genius of Venice celebrates the city's oldest and most important architectural site. Dial Parrott's...

The world's eighth largest economy has a unique shape and structure. Characterized by strong social networks and a niche capitalism built on successful small and medium-sized enterprises, the Italian economy has a nature distinct from its European neighbours. Vera Zamagni charts Italy's recent economic history from the postwar years of reconstruction through to the present day and the legacy of the financial crisis. Combining illustrative data with qualitative analysis, she provides a clear and...

When Rainer Decker was researching a sensational seventeenth-century German witchcraft trial, he discovered, much to his surprise, that in this case the papacy functioned as a force of skepticism and restraint. His curiosity piqued, he tried unsuccessfully to gain access to a secret Vatican archive housing the records of the Roman Inquisition that had been sealed to outsiders from its sixteenth-century beginnings. In 1996 Decker was one of the first of a small group of scholars allowed access. O...

This title in the series on 19th and 20th century military, naval and air history provides fresh interpretations of existing material and covers strategic, diplomatic, economic and financial issues. After the Unification of Italy, the Italian army faced the tasks of making and defending the nation. Increasingly preoccupied with domestic disorder at home it also struggled to create defences against hostile European powers. At the same time it fought two major colonial wars, and in one of them, su...

This edited collection is a novel book with contributions from eleven expert researchers on the history of tourism in Europe. This book explores the growth of tourism in contemporary postwar Europe, especially during the periods following the First and Second World Wars and the Spanish Civil War. It reveals both the work carried out by social agents and institutions to develop tourism, and the contribution of tourism in boosting the economy and the recovery of morale in the Old Continent Its or...

During the Italian Wars of 1494 to 1559, with innovations in military technology and tactics, armour began to disappear from the battlefield. Yet as field armour was retired, parade and ceremonial armour grew increasingly flamboyant. Displaced from its utilitarian function of defense but retained for symbolic uses, armour evolved in a new direction as a medium of artistic expression. Luxury armour became a chief accessory in the performance of elite male identity, coded with messages regarding t...

Mussolini's Children uses the lens of state-mandated youth culture to analyze the evolution of official racism in Fascist Italy. Between 1922 and 1940, educational institutions designed to mold the minds and bodies of Italy's children between the ages of five and eleven undertook a mission to rejuvenate the Italian race and create a second Roman Empire. This project depended on the twin beliefs that the Italian population did indeed constitute a distinct race and that certain aspects of its mora...