The Nature of the Risorgimento

<p class=p1 style=margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-feature-settings: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 10px; line-height: normal; font-family: Helvetica;><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000 style=>Following Italy's unification in 1861 the new state faced the complex task of achieving political administrative </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>and cultural cohesion which also required a unified body of knowledge about the national </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>territory and its natural environment. This book explores how knowledge of Italian nature was produced </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>circulated and institutionalised in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as part of the broader nationbuilding </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>project and how it contributed to the symbolic and material construction of the nation. Scientists </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>played a crucial role in articulating a naturalistic unity of the peninsula mapping its resources and </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>defining the idea of a distinct 'Italian' landscape. Through a critical analysis of scientific practices actors </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000>and institutions the study reveals how Italian nature served as a symbol of national identity an </font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000 style=>instrument of political legitimacy and a means of shaping and consolidating a shared vision of Italy as <i>Il </i></font></span><span style=font-size: 18px;><font color=#000000 style=><i>Bel Paese </i>- an image that remains deeply embedded in the country's cultural imagination today.</font></span></p>