Italy remains an enigma for many observers. Recent Social Trends in Italy, 1960-1995, the sixth volume from the international Comparative Charting of Social Change program, provides a new and convincing schema for its comprehension. It shows that three essential institutions have structured and unified Italian society: the family, the church, and political parties. While the state remains a weak institution, it is important as a regulator of the economy and of society through the welfare state. The book, which contains a long introduction by Alberto Martinelli on the uneven modernization of...

The EU today is at a crossroads: either it becomes a great supranational union or it goes back to being an array of separate independent states. Alberto Martinelli and Alessandro Cavalli draw a grand fresco of the society in which the European Union is taking shape. Long-term social and cultural trends and main current developments in economics and politics are synthetically outlined. Key questions of identity and nationalism, immigration and inequality, welfare and economic governance, are thoroughly analysed. Main cleavages, conflicts of interest and different visions of member states, as...