The Hunchback's Tailor

This work examines the political life of Italy's most notable prime minister after Cavour. Alongside Georges Clemenceau and David Lloyd George, Giovanni Giolitti (1842-1928) stands out as one of the major liberal reformers of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe. Giolitti emerges not as a transitional figure leading fledgling Italy into modern democracy, but as a staunch adherent of 19th-century elitist liberalism trying to navigate the new tide of mass politics. The author's research offers an insight into Giolitti as statesman and, through him, a vantage point on the development of Italy during a critical period. Giolitti's troubled relationship with mass politics defined his years in office. A life-long bureaucrat aloof from the electorate, Giolitti introduced near universal male suffrage - even while commenting that first "teaching everyone to read and write" would be a more reasonable route - and tolerated labour strikes. Rather than reform the state as a concession to populism, however, Giolitti sought to accommodate the politics of the piazza under the roof of liberal parliamentarianism, first in his pursuit of coalitions with Socialist and Catholic groups, and finally, at the end of his political life, in a failed courtship with Fascism.

ISBN 027596874X   Pages 320 ISBN13 9780275968748 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher ABC-CLIO   Weight (grammes) 608 Imprint Greenwood Press   Published in Westport Format Hardback   Series title Italian and Italian American Studies Publication date 30 Nov 2000   Height (mm) 235 Non-book description x, 294 p., 7 p. of plates :   Width (mm) 155 Library of Congress DG575   Spine width (mm) 29 DEWEY 945.09   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		Foreword by Spencer M. Di Scala
		Acknowledgments
		Introduction
Ch. 1		The Apprenticeship of a Statesman, 1842-1892
Ch. 2		A Disastrous Beginning: The Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 1892-1893
Ch. 3		Into the Wilderness: Giolitti in Opposition, 1894-1901
Ch. 4		The Zanardelli-Giolitti Government: 1901-1903
Ch. 5		Giolitti's Second Ministry: Doing It "Right," 1903-1905
Ch. 6		The Long Ministry, 1906-1909: The Heyday of the Giolittian System
Ch. 7		Domestic Reform and War, 1910-1914
Ch. 8		A Second Political Exile, 1914-1920
Ch. 9		Giolitti and the Crisis of the Liberal State, 1920-1928
		Conclusion
		Selected Bibliography
		Index

.,."Professor De Grand has once again produced a thoroughly researched monograph which clearly explains the political context in which Giolitti and all other politicians operated. In that sense the author has provided a balanced and judicious account of the political career of one of Italy's greatest parlimentarians which will be welcomed by all scholars and students of modern Italian history."-Canadian Journal of History

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