Italy: A Short History

On time, perfect condition and nothing to complain about. Highly recommend purchasing from this seller.

I had to buy this for a class. i got a good price and it was in good shape. I can't say I enjoyed reading it too much, but then again, I got it out of necessity not desire.

Unlike the other reviewers, I found the book refreshing and well articulated. Of course at 300 pages it is indeed a brief precise of such a glorious and long history. In response to concerns that you might have about it being too short, you should realise that there is no lack of long voluminous treatises on many portions of Italy's history.The book is characterised by the author's ability to sum up entire episodes and events very succinctly. So that you can grasp and hopefully remember the essence of a time, rather than just commit dates and facts to memory.There was one remark in the text that intrigued me. It said that at the conclusion of the 3rd Punic War, the vengeful Roman senators, especially Cato, had all the surviving Cathaginians enslaved. Some 50 000 of them. Wow. The puzzling point was the suggestion that this led to the fall of the Roman Republic. In other more extensive accounts of the Punic War, I do not remember this causality being bruited about. Is there anything to it?e

When one thinks of Italy, one thinks of Rome and Mussolini. The author dispels these notions and shows us the true Italy. This is the birthplace of civilization and Empire. It was also the scene of the Black Death, city states, and the battleground of Europe. The author stages the story of Italy in nine easy to read chapters. One can get a short summary of the stages in Italy's development. This would be a nice read for those about to visit the country.The one thing I fault this book for is that it tends to jump around. It mentions a name, and then latter on talks about this person. Other than that, there is a nice little summary of the history of this great nation.

This book was the text used for an Italian culture class I recently took as a requirement for my Italian minor. While it was full of information, I felt that some topics were just skipped over. The Colosseum earns an entire sentence, yet Caravaggio, perhaps the most famous and adored of Italian Baroque painters (the Italians so honored him by printing his picture on the L100,000 note) does not even get a mention. Granted it must have been challenging to cover over 3000 years of civilization in 300 pages, but it just seems like this book skips over too much. If you want a chronology of Italy, this is the book for you, but if you want detailed information into the history of Italy, you may want to look elsewhere.

I was initially excited by this book when I first bought it, but it became more & more difficult to follow as I went thru it.The reason is the book's poor usage of events, places and maps. For example: the book talks about what the Etruscans did, but doesn't tell you where they are from or even who they are. The movement of people from the Po Valley is discussed, but you're not told where the Po Valley is. Don't check the index, Po Valley isn't there. There's a map on page 14 on the expansion of Italy, but the territories referenced aren't in the text or the index. I finally gave up trying to place events with places and abandoned the book at page 23.This is a history of Italy for people who already know the history of italy.

Una storia dell'Italia davvero stringata ma ben fatta e con un inglese non difficile.