Darkest Italy : The Nation and Stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno, 1860-1900

Stereotypical representations of the Mezzogiorno are a persistent feature of Italian culture at all levels.In Darkest Italy, John Dickie analyzes these stereotypes in the post-Unification period, when the Mezzogiorno was widely seen as barbaric, violent or irrational, an "Africa" on the European continent.At the same time, this is the moment when the Mezzogiorno became a metaphor for the state of the country as a whole, the index of Italy s modernity.Dickie argues that these stereotypes, rather than being a symptom of the failings of national identity in Italy, were actually integral to the way Italy s bourgeoisie imagined themselves as Italian.Drawing on recent theories of Otherness and national identity, Dickie brings a new light to an important and well-established area of Italian history - the relationship between the South and the nation as a whole.