Britain Ireland And The Italian Risorgimento

This book offers a unique and fascinating examination of British and Irish responses to Italian independence and unification in the mid-nineteenth century. Chapters explore the interplay of religion, politics, exile, feminism, colonialism and romanticism in fuelling impassioned debates on the 'Italian question' on both sides of the Irish Sea.

This book offers a unique and fascinating examination of British and Irish responses to Italian independence and unification in the mid-nineteenth century. Chapters explore the interplay of religion, politics, exile, feminism, colonialism and romanticism in fuelling impassioned debates on the 'Italian question' on both sides of the Irish Sea.

Nation-Nazione brings together scholars of Ireland and Italy to examine the multiple intersections, impacts, and influences that flowed between Italy and Ireland, and Italian and Irish nationalists in the nineteenth century. The book contributes to a fuller understanding of the national movements of both places, and the often surprising and unexpected intersections from electoral politics to culture to military force, as well as the abiding impact of Italian events, myths, and personalities in Ireland, and Irish in Italy. For Irish historians, it questions the image of Irish isolation or exceptionalism, just as it reminds Italians that the most distant corners of Europe impacted on their own national history.

This book examines Anglo-Italian political and cultural relations and analyses the importance of religion in the British 'Orientalist' perception of Italy. It puts religion at the centre of a harsh political and cultural war, one that was fought on international, diplomatic, and domestic levels.

"This book examines how a group of transnational British-Italian women affiliated with the exiled patriots of the Italian Left repurposed traditionally feminine activities, such as fundraising, gift-giving, maternity, and memory collection, to make a substantial contribution to Italian Unification and state-building. Through their actions, Mary Chambers, Sara Nathan, Giorgina Saffi, Julia Salis Schwabe, and Jessie White Mario transcended the boundaries of acceptable behavior for middle-class women and participated in the broader female emancipation movement. By drawing attention to their activities, this book reveals how nineteenth-century female activists achieved their most revolutionary goals by using conservative, domestic, or anti-Catholic language. Adding to the growing understanding of the Italian Risorgimento as a transnational phenomenon, it also shows how non-Catholic and non-Italian women participated in the creation and development of the Italian state. Finally, the book argues for the continuing importance of religion in both politics and philanthropy throughout the nineteenth century."

This book explores the interests of British leaders, diplomats and consuls in the unifying of Italy. It is the first study to provide a comprehensive narrative of British policy on Italian affairs between the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 and its consolidation as a new nation-state through the acquisitions of Venice in 1866 and Rome in 1870. Commencing with an investigation of the place of Italy within the context of mid-Victorian Britain’s global interests, the book investigates the origins of British sympathy for Italian nationalism during the 1850s, before charting the development of British foreign policy regarding Italy during its unification and consolidation. Emphasis is placed upon the tendency of British leaders and representatives to consider it their responsibility to guide the new Italy through its formative years, and upon their desire to draw Italy into a ‘special relationship’ with Britain as the dominant power within the Mediterranean.

This book examines the intersections among literary works by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Shelley and Wilkie Collins, journalism, parliamentary records and pamphlets, to establish Britain's imaginative investment in the seismic geopolitical realignment of Italian unification.