Italians,The

Mr Hooper's book is a solid entry. I've lived in Italy for decades (actually much longer than the author), and my research as a historian is not unlike some of the investigations undertaken by journalists such as Mr Hooper.

Rather than considering a few specific, problematical conclusions based on the author's personal observations, or embarking on a wider discussion of the differences among claims, evidence and "proof," it may be more pragmatic simply to suggest that people shouldn't all be painted with the same broad brush. Italian society is eclectic, perhaps more so than some. The longer you live in Italy, the more you realize that, and it's true of most countries I have been to where I could understand at least some of the language.

This book takes Luigi Barzini's work of the same name as its model. Barzini's book, with its literary and historical references, was reasonably good for its time, but his approach wouldn't work very well today because the essential social fabric of Italy has changed since the postwar era. It is far more complex than it was when Barzini wrote his book. Hooper's overview reminds me of an earlier work by Tobias Jones, The Dark Heart of Italy, which is also quite good.

These books straddle a nexus between social commentary and memoir, which can be tricky territory. One of their shortcomings is that they generally overlook the regions south of Rome, which constituted a separate country until 1860.

On the other hand, and on the other side of the Strait of Messina, the two books about Sicily by John Keahey, and another two by Theresa Maggio, are good examples of expositions of the Italians of a specific region.

While The Italians is informative, and generally accurate, it should be taken with a few grains of salt.