Acknowledgments xv
1. The Beautiful Country 1
Porta Pia
Glory and misery
"The crux of the Italian problem"
Islands, highlands and plains
2. A Violent Past 12
Leo's legacy
Goths, Lombards and Byzantines
A holy forgery
The communes
The Venetian exception
The medieval Mezzogiorno
The Italian wars and the Sack of Rome
Under foreign yokes
3. Echoes and Reverberations 23
Two Italies… or three?
Civismo
A linguist's playground
Superiority and sensitivity
The vincolo esterno
Of furbi and fessi
Fragile loyalties
The prime minister who vanished from history
Trasformismo
4. A Hall of Mirrors 40
The Minister for Simplification
A plethora of laws (and law-enforcers)
Bureaucracy
Truth and verityà
Mysteries and the "misty port"
Pirandello
5. Fantasia 56
Myths and legends
A phantom army
Pinocchio
Copiatura
Masks and messages
Opera
Padania declares independence
Dietrologia
6. Face Values 72
The neo-Fascist's bare arms
Style and look
Symbolism
Talking visually
Videocracy
Bella (and brutta)figura
7. Life as Art 90
Treasuring life
A thick layer of stardust
Work and leisure
La tavola
The Mediterranean diet
Slow Food and fast food
A brief history of pasta
Foreign food … what foreign food?
8. Gnocchi on Thursdays 104
D'Antona and Biagi
A love of the familiar
"Acts of God" and acts of man
One step to the right
Conservatism, technophobia and gerontocracy
The "BOT people"
From catenaccio to gambling fever
9. Holy Orders 119
A blurred line
The bloody end of Muslim Italy
Jews and ghettos
The Waldensians
Freemasonry
Blasphemy
The Lateran Pacts
Christian Democracy
A less Catholic Italy
Comunione e Liberazione
Sant'Egidio
Padre Pio
The "testicles of His Holiness"
10. Le Italiane-Attitudes Change 139
Great-aunt Clorinda
From Mozzoni to the Manifesto di rivolta femminile
Gender and language
Veline
Desperate housewives
Ricatto Sessuale
The influence of Berlusconi
If Not Now, When?
Change in (and on) the air
La Mamma: glorified but unsupported
11. Lovers and Sons 155
Al cuore non si comanda?
A sexual revolution (within limits)
Sensuous she-cats and "Italian stallions"
Adultery
Prostitution
Contraception and the mystery of the (missing) unplanned pregnancies
Mammismo
Gender stereotyping
Homosexuality
12. Family Matters 170
An honored but changing institution
Divorce
The decline of marriage
The Italian family firm: myths and realities
The arrival of the badante
Stay-at-home kids: spoiled or just broke?
"Amoral familism"
Menefreghismo
13. People Who Don't Dance 186
From behind shades
Wariness
The Fox and the Cat
To ciao or not to ciao?
A love of titles
Mistrust
Alcohol (and teetotalism)
Narcotics
14. Taking Sides 199
Il piacere di stare insieme
Guelphs and Ghibellines
From the Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club to Berlusconi's AC Milan
Professionalism … and professional fouls
Gianni Brera and the footballing press
Il processo del lunedi
Fan radios
The ultras
Referees
Calciopoli
15. Restrictive Practices 216
Possessive instincts
Catholicism and liberalism
Lottizzazione
Capitalism without competition
Protectionism
Shareholder pacts Enrico Cuccia and il salotto buono
The never-ending tale of the foreign lettori
16. Of Mafias and Mafiosi 227
A relatively crime-free nation
What makes a mafia?
Cosa Nostra decapitated
The rise of the Camorra and 'Ndrangheta
Sciascia's palm tree line: organized crime creeps north
An absence of trust and the legacy of Unification
17. Temptation and Tangenti 237
How corrupt is Italy?
The role of patronage
A tolerance of graft Corruption and corruzione
Nepotism
"Everything in Rome comes at a price"
The culture of the raccomandazione
The cost of graft
A "renaissance of corruption"
18. Pardon and Justice 249
The navel of Italy
Abusivismo
Laws and conventions
Pardon and justice
The Sofri case
Slow-moving courts
The 1989 legal reform
Gardntisti versus giustizialisti
The magistratura
19. Questions of Identity 269
Italy has a birthday party
Campanilismo and the frailty of separatism
Concepts of Italia
Diversity and disunity
Dialects lose ground
The north-south divide: perceptions and statistics
"Italian-ness"
Immigration
Racism
Sinti and Roma
Epilogue 287
Blue skies, blue seas … and unhappiness
Italy's economic decline
Rules and change
The need for a dream
Jep's smile
Notes 295
Index 301