With the Tangentopoli corruption scandals of the early 1990s, Italy is purported recently to have experienced a period of political change comparable to the period immediately following World War II. This latter being the socio-political environment in which the concept of impegno - political commitment - in literature became current, this volume asks whether an equivalent moment of constitutional crisis in the 1990s has had a comparable impact on perceptions of the role of the writer and of literature in Italian society.
The volume traces the development of impegno in post-war Italian...

Worshipped by her fans, denounced by her enemies, and forever shadowed by controversy and scandal, the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was a powerful thinker whose views on government and markets shaped the conservative movement from its earliest days. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rand's private papers and the original, unedited versions of Rand's journals, Jennifer Burns offers a groundbreaking reassessment of this key cultural figure, examining her life, her ideas, and her impact on conservative political thought.

Goddess of the Market follows Rand from her childhood in...

The Unification of Italy in 1870 heralded a period of unprecedented change. While successive Liberal governments pursued imperial ventures and took Italy into World War One on the Allied side, on the domestic front technological advance, the creation of a national transport network, the expansion of state education, internal migration to cities and the rise of political associations all contributed to the rapid expansion of the print industry and the development of new and highly diversified reading publics.
Drawing on publishers' archives, letters, diaries, and printed material, this...