Books & ideas

Raised Among the Ruins

Charlotte Canizo — 2026-03-05T09:00:00Z

By adopting a child's perspective, Camille Mahé shows that younger children perceived the Second World War differently than adults.

Gramsci in the Face of the Great and Terrible World

Yohann Douet — 2025-05-13T06:00:00Z

The life and work of Antonio Gramsci are inseparable. To grasp the coherence and theoretical depth of the Prison Notebooks, one must read them in the context in which they were written.

Italy before Italy

Valeria Caldarella Allaire — 2025-05-06T12:44:46Z

Does Italy have a history before unification? Located at the heart of the Mediterranean, the peninsula gives the impression of being a cultural koiné but is in fact characterized by political, economic, and social diversity.

The Rising Invisible Majority

Alessandro Arrigoni & Emanuele Ferragina — 2021-03-01T08:00:00Z

A period of political and economic turmoil calls for a new analytical framework to be developed. Drawing upon the tools of social science and fiction, the “Rising Invisible Majority” project examines how the shifts of a long-term political economy rendered a large share of its population ‘invisible'.

Can Covid-19 Crisis Change Italian Politics?

Alessandro Mulieri — 2020-04-27T07:21:24Z

Since Italy has been a laboratory of recent global political developments, it is important to keep a close eye on how anti-elite and souverainist tendencies fare in the Coronavirus crisis that has hit Italy hard and how party lines have been reshuffled in the current reconciliation with technocracy.

Collectors, Dealers and Artists

Marion Amblard — 2020-02-06T08:33:54Z

Being the capital of the arts in western Europe in the 18^th century, Rome was also an important centre for art dealing. An innovative, interdisciplinary approach allows to investigate different aspects of this particular art market in the age of the Grand Tour.

Writing the History of “Natural” Disasters

Lukas Schemper — 2019-12-30T08:00:00Z

Though they are called “natural”, disasters such as earthquakes have a social, political and economic dimension; it is therefore possible to write their history. The 111^th anniversary of the Messina earthquake is an opportunity to reflect on the multi-dimensionality of the event and to outline avenues for historical research on natural disasters.

The History of Afterlives

Miri Rubin — 2019-10-17T07:00:00Z

Ambrose of Milan, fourth-century theologian, administrator, bishop and eventually saint Father of the Church, left his mark in the history of the Church and beyond. Patrick Boucheron explores his life and afterlives, in a dialogue between then and now, writing a history to live by.

Grand Tourism: Educational Journeys in 18th Century Europe

Marion Amblard — 2018-10-29T08:00:00Z

The Grand Tour was a journey on the European continent undertaken by 17^th and 18^th-century British aristocrats to perfect their education. This book reveals the importance, within this trip, of a city until now overlooked by scholarship: Turin, a political and cultural crossroad.

The Curious Monsieur Veyne

Sarah Rey — 2015-12-17T08:00:00Z

Thanks to his work on Greco-Roman antiquity, his intellectual curiosity, his pronounced taste for interdisciplinarity, his sense of humor, and the freedom that informs all his research, Paul Veyne is a twentieth-century historian whose work cannot be avoided. A loose cannon at the heart of the academic establishment, a deep thinker and a dilettante, Veyne invites us, through his work, to a festival of thought.