Relations between Italy and China have long been clouded by myths and projection biases, and only sparse scientific literature explores how the paths of these two countries have been intersecting in the modern era, once the pursuit of nationhood and status within international society had belatedly emerged as the defining traits of their morphing identities. This edited volume is proposed to the attention of the international community of scholars, practitioners, undergraduate and graduate students of Italy and China as a first attempt to offer a comprehensive account in the English language of the rationales and dynamics shaping the reiterated encounter between two actors which in 2014 remain amongst the world's top-10 economies. The cycles of friendship and enmity that have marked the past 150 years of relations between Italy and China - culminating in the current decade of strategic partnership - are here examined in interdisciplinary fashion by both scholars and practitioners across ten chapters proposing original insights through fresh sources.

Developed by an international team of historians, sociologists, political scientists and economists, this collection is the most comprehensive reader of the history of Sino-Italian relations currently available in the English language.