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New and Old in the Southern Question∗

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Piero Bevilacqua
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Summary

The southern question has been posed at the key moments in the history of the Italian state. Today we face a moment of comparable importance which urges that the southern question be re-thought. It is not an unchanging question, yet it concerns issues fundamental to the state and has been treated by the country's greatest intellectuals as a national issue. The meridionalisti have been Italy's critical conscience yet, at the same time, stereotypes of a uniformly backward South have taken hold. The post-war intervention in the Mezzogiorno should not be seen through such stereotypes as a wholly negative experience. Its successes and failures fit into an Italian pattern of state-led modernization and it cannot be understood in isolation from the Italian state's weaknesses. Today, a new pact between the weakest and strongest sectors is essential. The South's economic and political leadership will be a central object of study if intellectuals are to help inform new policy.

Type
Contexts and Debates
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , 1996 , pp. 81 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

1 Obviously I am referring to Pasquale Villari's Lettere meridionali, first published in book form in 1875. There have been various editions since then: see the recent ones by Loescher, Turin, 1972 and Guida, Naples, 1979. See also my Breve storia dell'Italia meridionale dall'Ottocento a oggi, Donzelli, Rome, 1993, pp. 36ff.Google Scholar

2 See De Benedetti, Augusto, Nuovo meridionalismo. L'Iri e lo sviluppo induslriale del Sud (1933–1943), Meridiana Libri, Catanzaro, 1996; Cafiero, Salvatore, Questione meridionale e unità nazionale (1861–1995), La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 1996, p. 165ff.Google Scholar

3 See Graziani, Augusto, ‘Mezzogiorno oggi’, Meridiana, 1, 1987, pp. 201–216.Google Scholar

4 I drew attention to this aspect in the entry ‘Questione meridionale’ in Ginsborg, Paul (ed.), Stato dell'Italia, Il Saggiatore, Milan, 1994, pp. 72–77.Google Scholar

5 See Donzelli, Carmine, ‘Mezzogiorno tra “questione” e purgatorio’, Meridiana, 9, 1990, pp. 13–53.Google Scholar

6 Gaspare De Caro drew attention to these doubtful sociological interpretations of the South in his biography, Salvemini, UTET, Turin, 1970, pp. 28ff.Google Scholar

7 Gramsci, Antonio, ‘Alcuni temi sulla quistione meridionale’ (1926), in Scritti sulla questione meridionale, Editori Riuniti, Rome, 1966, pp. 13–47. For the figures on the cities see Barone, Giuseppe, ‘Mezzogiorno e egemonie urbane’, Meridiana, 5, 1989.Google Scholar

8 On the origins of the extraordinary state intervention in the South see Cafiero, S., ‘La nascita della Cassa’, in Studi in onore di Pasquale Saraceno, Giuffrè, Milan, 1975, and now in d'Antone, Leandra (ed.), Radici storiche ed esperienza dell'intervento straordinario nel Mezzogiorno, Atti del Convegno di Taormina, 18–19 November 1995, Bibliopolis, Rome, 1996.Google Scholar

9 See Bonelli, Franco, ‘Il capitalismo italiano. Linee generali di interpretazione’, in Storia d'Italia, Annali, 1, Dal feudalesimo al capitalismo, Einaudi, Turin, 1978, pp. 1217ff.Google Scholar

10 D'Antone, Leandra, ‘L'interesse straordinario per il Mezzogiorno’, in Meridiana, 24, 1995, pp. 17–64.Google Scholar

11 Quoted in ibid.Google Scholar

12 CENSIS, 29° Rapporto sulla situazione sociale del Paese 1995, Angeli, Milan, 1995, p. 427.Google Scholar

13 See Cersosimo, Domenico, ‘Quale industria per il Sud? Neodualismo e prospettive di sviluppo’, Meridiana, 9, 1990, pp. 55–78.Google Scholar

14 On recent developments in this sphere see Luciano, Adriana, ‘Le nuove professioni nel Mezzogiorno’, Meridiana, 13, 1992, pp. 129–158.Google Scholar