Princeton University Press Italian Foreign Policy: The Statecraft of the Founders, 1870-1896 (Princeton Legacy Library)

Federico Chabod (1901-1960) was one of Italy's best-known historians, noted for his study of Italian history in a European context. This is the first English translation of his most important book. Although he carried out his extensive archival research for this work from 1936 until 1943, the fall of fascism and Chabod's active participation in the Resistance delayed its completion. When it was published in 1951, it was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. Chabod intended to write a new kind of diplomatic history-- one in which political history is seen as part of a larger historical whole. He does not present a detailed chronological account of Italian foreign policy during the period studied, but rather the "moral and material" underpinnings of that policy. In fact, he crafts a highly developed portrait of an age, with the real subjects being the Italian state and society, the ruling class and political culture. This work offers readers a superb picture of post-Risorgimento Italy and an outstanding example of Chabod's historiographical method. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. Review One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1997 It is a most impressive and interesting work.... It is far more than a diplomatic history.... Chabod has produced a kind of total history that is a monument of scholarship, splendidly organized.-- "Foreign Affairs" About the Author Gianni Vattimo teaches hermeneutic philosophy at the University of Turin and is a renowned public intellectual and former member of the European parliament. His books include "After the Death of God" (with John D. Caputo), "The Future of Religion" (with Richard Rorty), "Nihilism and Emancipation", "After Christianity", and the forthcoming, "Art's Claim to Truth", William McCuaig is the translator of "Books, Banks, Buttons, and Other Inventions from the Middle Ages", by Chiara Frugoni, and Vattimo's "Nihilism and Emancipation",