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Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Emigres and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era
The experience of exiles was fundamental for shaping Italian national identity. Risorgimento in Exile investigates the contribution to Italian nationalism made by the numerous patriots who were forced to live in exile following failed revolutions in the Italian states.
Examining the writings of such exiles, Maurizio Isabella challenges recent historiography regarding the lack of genuine liberal culture in the Risorgimento . He argues that these 'emigrés' involvement in debates with British, continental, and American intellectuals points to the emergence of Liberalism and Romanticism as international ideologies shared by a community of patriots that stretched from Europe to Latin America.
Risorgimento in Exile represents the first effort to place Italian patriotism in a broad international framework, revealing the importance and originality of the Italian contribution to European Anglophilia and Philhellenism, and to transatlantic debates on federalism. In doing so, it demonstrates that the Risorgimento first developed as a variation upon such global trends.
Examining the writings of such exiles, Maurizio Isabella challenges recent historiography regarding the lack of genuine liberal culture in the Risorgimento . He argues that these 'emigrés' involvement in debates with British, continental, and American intellectuals points to the emergence of Liberalism and Romanticism as international ideologies shared by a community of patriots that stretched from Europe to Latin America.
Risorgimento in Exile represents the first effort to place Italian patriotism in a broad international framework, revealing the importance and originality of the Italian contribution to European Anglophilia and Philhellenism, and to transatlantic debates on federalism. In doing so, it demonstrates that the Risorgimento first developed as a variation upon such global trends.
298 pages, Hardcover
First published August 27, 2009
48 people want to read
About the author
Maurizio Isabella
5 books1 followerMaurizio Isabella is a senior lecturer in history at Queen Mary, University of London.
His research focuses on the political thought and the intellectual and cultural history of the Risorgimento in transnational context. Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile (2009) studies exile in early nineteenth century as an intellectual experience and assesses early Italian liberalism and patriotism as part of transatlantic and pan-European ideological currents.
Isabella’s current research project focuses on the international thought of the Risorgimento (1796–c.1860). It seeks to analyze the ways in which Italian patriots and intellectuals framed and justified the national question in the context of new visions of international relations and sought to reconcile Italian independence with the existing or imagined European, Mediterranean, and global order. By so doing the project will provide new perspectives on the globalization of nineteenth-century international thought and will highlight the original Italian contribution to European and trans-national debates on international law, empire, war, and peace.
His research focuses on the political thought and the intellectual and cultural history of the Risorgimento in transnational context. Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile (2009) studies exile in early nineteenth century as an intellectual experience and assesses early Italian liberalism and patriotism as part of transatlantic and pan-European ideological currents.
Isabella’s current research project focuses on the international thought of the Risorgimento (1796–c.1860). It seeks to analyze the ways in which Italian patriots and intellectuals framed and justified the national question in the context of new visions of international relations and sought to reconcile Italian independence with the existing or imagined European, Mediterranean, and global order. By so doing the project will provide new perspectives on the globalization of nineteenth-century international thought and will highlight the original Italian contribution to European and trans-national debates on international law, empire, war, and peace.
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February 6, 2023
4.5 stars. From a discussion post:
Maurizio Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile marks an intervention into two strands of Risorginmento historiography. First, it is a strong critique of Gramscian scholarship that contends that Italian liberalism was counter-revolutionary and largely conservative. Isabella’s critique is remarkably successful. He is able to articulate how exiles engaged in a hybridization of the political models and ideologies of the different countries in which they resided. His discussion of anglo-Italians is particularly successful in this venture. Here, he deploys more primary sources and is better able to tease out how the thoughts of the exiles emerged. The analysis of Pecchio and Arrivabene in chapter eight is particularly notable because it demonstrates that the reactions to England, even if appreciative of its aristocracy, were far from simple conservatism.
Isabella is also speaking to a recent scholarship that has emphasized the Risorgimento in this period as part of a “circulation of ideas.” This work has in large part been dominated by social and cultural historians, and Isabella’s work is meant to “accord due weight to ideology, politics, and the different forms of freedom in defining the nation, themes that are marginalized by the ‘new cultural history’”(5). While Isabella successfully gives weight to these new themes, there is some loss in his inattention to culture and social interaction. In describing the exiles' political reactions to their host countries he often loses sight of the exiles as actual living people. There is no discussion, as Ben already points out, of their host countries' reactions to them. Other questions remain open: How did they relate to revolutionaries at home? How did the emotional experience of exile shape their politics? How did the work of other exiles shape their politics? These questions need not be central to the whole narrative but could have been gestured at in the opening chapter. Additionally, more focus on the biographical information of each individual exile would have assisted in creating a more holistic interpretation of the exiles. Regardless, Isabella’s work is powerful and the questions it leaves open may be the generation of more exemplary scholarship.
Maurizio Isabella’s Risorgimento in Exile marks an intervention into two strands of Risorginmento historiography. First, it is a strong critique of Gramscian scholarship that contends that Italian liberalism was counter-revolutionary and largely conservative. Isabella’s critique is remarkably successful. He is able to articulate how exiles engaged in a hybridization of the political models and ideologies of the different countries in which they resided. His discussion of anglo-Italians is particularly successful in this venture. Here, he deploys more primary sources and is better able to tease out how the thoughts of the exiles emerged. The analysis of Pecchio and Arrivabene in chapter eight is particularly notable because it demonstrates that the reactions to England, even if appreciative of its aristocracy, were far from simple conservatism.
Isabella is also speaking to a recent scholarship that has emphasized the Risorgimento in this period as part of a “circulation of ideas.” This work has in large part been dominated by social and cultural historians, and Isabella’s work is meant to “accord due weight to ideology, politics, and the different forms of freedom in defining the nation, themes that are marginalized by the ‘new cultural history’”(5). While Isabella successfully gives weight to these new themes, there is some loss in his inattention to culture and social interaction. In describing the exiles' political reactions to their host countries he often loses sight of the exiles as actual living people. There is no discussion, as Ben already points out, of their host countries' reactions to them. Other questions remain open: How did they relate to revolutionaries at home? How did the emotional experience of exile shape their politics? How did the work of other exiles shape their politics? These questions need not be central to the whole narrative but could have been gestured at in the opening chapter. Additionally, more focus on the biographical information of each individual exile would have assisted in creating a more holistic interpretation of the exiles. Regardless, Isabella’s work is powerful and the questions it leaves open may be the generation of more exemplary scholarship.
Displaying 1 of 1 review