'The Italian Idea offers a fine contribution to the strong and durable critical interest in Anglo-Italian relations during the period. Particularly effective is Bowers's telescoping mode of inquiry, one that allows him to move nimbly between insightful close readings of individual works and a contextual regard for the complex ways that these works are warmed by the fading revolutionary coals of the post-Waterloo years.' John Bugg, Keats-Shelley Journal
1. Italians and the 'public mind' before 1815; 2. The genesis of an Italian style; 3. Foscolo, Hobhouse, and Holland House; 4. Venice redefined; 5. An almost revolutionary queen; 6. Sailing in the wind's eye.