Crime, Disorder, and the Risorgimento: The Politics of Policing in Bologna

ISBN-13: 9780521444507 / Angielski / Twarda / 1994 / 304 str.

Steven C. Hughes

Opis

This book provides a meticulous examination of the ideology, structure, and functions of the papal police as they operated in the city and province of Bologna in the period before Italian unity, and in doing so offers an important new interpretation of the Risorgimento. The author argues that after the Restoration the new police soon found themselves incapable of dealing effectively with overwhelming problems of crime and public order. In allowing Bologna's elites to arm themselves in posse-style "citizen patrols" on two occasions, the papal government had opened the doors to reform and, eventually, revolution.

Recenzje

"...the arguments are provocative and cogent ones which will force historians of the Risorgimento to look beyond the political activities of the liberals and radicals, and consider how the failure of governments in the peninsula to address the concerns of public safety was a significant factor in directing elites toward a unitary solution for Italy. Hughes has produced a model study written with verve and persuasiveness which merits a prominent space among the studies emerging on social disorder and criminality in nineteenth-century Europe." Marion S. Miller, Journal of Modern Italian Studies

Spis treści

Introduction; 1. Setting the stage: Bologna, the ancien regime, and Napoleon; 2. Consalvi's troops; 3. Functions and failures; 4. Public order and the revolution of 1831; 5. Reform and failure; 6. Reform and revolution; 7. The search for stability and the turn to Piedmont; 8. Epilogue: risorgimento, freedom, and repression; 9. Conclusion.