The Dark Heart of Italy (Paperback)

In 1999 Tobias Jones immigrated to Italy, expecting to discover the pastoral bliss described by centuries of foreign visitors. Instead, he found a very different country: one besieged by unfathomable terrorism and deep-seated paranoia. "The Dark Heart of Italy" is Jones's account of his four-year voyage across the Italian peninsula.
Jones writes not just about Italy's art, climate, and cuisine but also about the much livelier and stranger sides of the Bel Paese: the language, soccer, Catholicism, cinema, television, and terrorism. Why, he wonders, does the parliament need a "slaughter commission"? Why do bombs still explode every time politics start getting serious? Why does everyone urge him to go home as soon as possible, saying that Italy is a "brothel"? Most of all, why does one man, Silvio Berlusconi-in the words of a famous song-appear to own everything from Padre Nostro (Our Father) to Cosa Nostra (the Mafia)?
The Italy that emerges from Jones's travels is a country scarred by civil wars and "illustrious corpses"; a country that is proudly visual rather than verbal, based on aesthetics rather than ethics; a country where crime is hardly ever followed by punishment; a place of incredible illusionism, where it is impossible to distinguish fantasy from reality and fact from fiction.

General

Imprint:	Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	June 2005
First published:	June 2005
Authors:	Tobias Jones
Dimensions:	213 x 137 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	338
ISBN-13:	978-0-86547-724-7
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > European history > General Books > History > European history > General
LSN:	0-86547-724-8
Barcode:	9780865477247

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