history
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Fascists or Clowns?
Italy remembers its proud past with names on streets and busts in the piazzas. Streets are named for poets, composers, liberators, historical dates (XX Septembre), Communist thinkers (Antonio Gramsci), Machiavelli, and even Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian-American anarchists executed by… Continue reading
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Around the world at the speed of light: Marconi, part II
The boy who had it all . . . wanted more. The young Gulielmo Marconi, living with his wealthy family in an Italian villa amid green pastures and woods, dreamed of bringing countries together. This was in the 1890s. The… Continue reading
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Looking for Marconi
Before “wireless” meant a Wi-Fi router in your home or office (the “Wi” is for wireless), it meant “radio” in radio’s early days, in the 1920s. “Turn on the wireless, Sweetie.” And before that, it was the word that a… Continue reading
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Lost in Translation
As Americans, we are twice-removed from how it feels to be in a European country. Our political consciousness is shaped by a two-party system (now more emotionally tribal than conservative-liberal) and elections set on two- and four-year cycles, rather than… Continue reading
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Lessons for us today, from Italians
I love old books lining bookshelves. The collection in the North Carolina home of a couple of friends held classics of Machiavelli scholarship. I gently pulled out, like sneaking a square of chocolate fudge, a vellum-bound volume. Carol Darr, the… Continue reading
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The Urbino Press Award
Every year, Italy honors a single American journalist as the very best of the best. Pulitzer Prizes may scatter to many journalists, but there is only one Urbino Award each year. To scholars of Italian history, this implies that a… Continue reading
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Ukrainian refugees in Italy
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Italy welcomed refugees and, within months, had absorbed more than 100,000. Among those, two sisters-in-law whose husbands were recruited into the Ukrainian army came on a cold, crowded bus with their four children… Continue reading
An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar. 