Numbers and Nationhood

ISBN-13: 9780521462969 / Angielski / Twarda / 1996 / 296 str.

Silvana Patriarca

Opis

Numbers and Nationhood explores the rise of statistics as a mode of representation in Italian society during the nineteenth century. Silvana Patriarca examines the ideologies that informed numerical productions, and the role that statistics played in generating a national image of Italy that nevertheless accentuated its internal territorial divisions. This innovative study provides a fresh reading of the historiography of Risorgimento Italy, bringing issues of science, ideology and representation to the fore.

Recenzje

' … this important and intelligent book … is a vital contribution to the historiography of Italian nationalism … suggests ways in which the new cultural history and the more traditional social and political history can complement and enrich each other. In this respect, its importance also transcends the boundaries of the Italian peninsula.' Economic History Review

Spis treści

1. Introduction: the history of statistics between state making and objectifications; 2. A science for 'civilized' countries: practitioners, audiences and theories of statistics, 1820s–50s; 3. Statistical description: between epistemology and politics; 4. Making public numbers: official statistics in the pre-unification monarchies; 5. Building the nation's body: 'patriotic statistics' representation of Italy; 6. The identity of the Italians, or the ambiguities of moral statistics; 7. Representing the new nation (1861–71); 8. A nation of Communes in a Europe of nationalities: the statistical Congress of Florence; Epilogue: measurable and unmeasurable things.