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Some Recent Books about Garibaldi
"The Hero of the Two Worlds"
Despite his heroic status in the English-speaking world during the nineteenth century, there was surprisingly little fanfare in
Britain
or
America
for the bicentennial of Giuseppe Garibaldi's birth in 2007. Nevertheless, two excellent new books did see print, as well as a new edition of his memoirs.
Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero
by Lucy Riall.
New Haven
:
Yale
University
Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 482. Illus, maps, notes, biblio., index. $35.00. ISBN: 978-0-30011-212-2.
My Life (Hesperus Classics)
by Giuseppe Garibaldi, translated and edited by Stephen Parkin.
London
: Hesperus Press, 2004. Pp. li, 173. Illus, maps, index. $17.95 paper. I SBN: 978-1843-91093-0.
Although they necessarily overlap a good deal, these works are complementary, rather than competitive.
Prof. Scirocco, a veteran historian from the
University
of
Naples Federico II
, has written a comprehensive biography nearly half of which deals with
Garibaldi's life and adventures before his conduct of the defense of the
Republic
of
Rome
in 1848-1849 turned him into a popular hero in Europe and North America.
Scirocco
provides an often blow-by-blow treatment of Garibaldi's many battles, but also discusses how the great hero made his living, and the evolution of the man's thoughts on war and peace, democracy, and society.
In contrast, Prof. Riall, of Birkbeck College, London, a rising star in Risorgimento studies, while providing a solid look at Garibaldi's life and works, devotes more attention to the man as mythic hero; how Garibaldi's deeds and goals helped shape his image, how that image shaped the man, and the political and cultural consequences of the Garibaldi phenomenon, which endured well into the twentieth century, and remains potent in the political and cultural life of Italy, on both the left and the right.
The new edition of Garibaldi's memoirs is unique because it
is the first translation into English from his original corrected manuscript, all previous translations having been made from published versions, often of the French edition.
All three volumes will be of interest to students of the Risorgimento, the hero in history, and the phenomenon of the romantic revolutionary.
Buy it at Amazon.com
|
,
by Alfonso Scirocco, translated by Allan Cameron.
Princeton
:
Princeton
University
Press, 2007. Pp. xii, 442. Chron., biblio., index. $35.00. ISBN: 978-0-691-11540-5.