First published in 1986, this book examines poverty and changing attitudes towards the poor and charity across England, France and Italy. It discusses the causes of poverty and the distinctions between the poor and the class-conscious proletariat. Taking early nineteenth-century Italy as a special study, it uses the exceptionally rich documentary sources from this time to examine such issues as charity, repression, the reasons why families suffered poverty and what strategies they adopted for survival. In this study, Stuart Woolf takes full account of recent work in historical demography and in sociological studies of poverty and the welfare state to produce this original and thoughtful work. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of poverty, class and the welfare state.

Research on historical processes such as commercialisation traditionally concentrated on the motors of change and measurement of their impact, and considered the labouring classes as the passive objects of such changes. Developments in the social sciences in recent years have stimulated a new reading of the historical sources in terms of the social relations and strategies of families in interpreting and adapting to their own use institutional settings and economic resources. The essays presented in this 1991 book explore the relationship between the historical experiences of social relations and the demands and opportunities offered by the economy in early modern Europe through a focus on the strategies of labouring families. Critical discussion of the historian's use of sources characterises the essays, which provide case-studies of social groups in north-central Italy and the French Alps. They relate to three specific themes: the exploitation of non-agricultural resources in the countryside, urban guilds and charitable provision.

First Published in 1979, A History of Italy 1700-1860 provides a comprehensive overview of Italy's political history from 1700-1860. Divided in five parts it deals with themes like the re-emergence of Italy; Italy as the 'pawn' of European diplomacy; social physiognomy of the Italian states; problems of the government; enlightenment and despotism (1760-90); the offensive against the Church; revolution and moderation (1789-1814); revolution and the break with the past; rationalization and social conservatism; the search for independence (1815-47); legitimacy and conspiracy; alternative paths towards a new Italy; and the cost of independence (1848-61). It fills a major gap and presents a thoughtful and well-integrated political narrative of this complex period in Italy's development. This book is an essential read for students and scholars of Italian history and European history.

First published in 1986, this book examines poverty and changing attitudes towards the poor and charity across England, France and Italy. It discusses the causes of poverty and the distinctions between the poor and the class-conscious proletariat. Taking early nineteenth-century Italy as a special study, it uses the exceptionally rich documentary sources from this time to examine such issues as charity, repression, the reasons why families suffered poverty and what strategies they adopted for survival. In this study, Stuart Woolf takes full account of recent work in historical demography and in sociological studies of poverty and the welfare state to produce this original and thoughtful work. This book will be of interest to those studying the history of poverty, class and the welfare state.

Histories of the Napoleonic period are almost exclusively biographies of the man, or political-military accounts of his wars. But such wars were only the first stage in a far more ambitious programme; the establishment of a rational state which would force the pace of modernising society. Through an examination of the experiences of French domination, Napoleon's Integration of Europe explores the implications of such a project for France and its relationship with the rest of Europe. It examines the problems of ruling a progressively expanding empire, as seen through the eyes of a trained corps of bureaucrates who were convinced that their scientific methods would enable them to understand and govern the mechanisms of society. However it also looks at the populations subjected to French rule, at the nature of their resistance and adaptation to the principles of the Napoleonic project. This book is the first overall comparative study of Europe in the Napoleonic years. It is a study not only of an early exercise in imperialism, but of the conflict that is aroused between the rationalising tendencies of the modern state and the spatial and cultural heterogeneity of individual societies. As well as a history of France, it is also a history of Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Poland and Spain at a crucial moment in the history of each nation state.

Nationalism has become so integral a part of life in Europe today that it is virtually impossible not to identify oneself with a nation-state, and yet nationalism is historically a modern phenomenon. This reader of classic texts draws on authors spanning a broad chronological period and from a variety of European countries--including John Stuart Mill and Otto Bauer--to explore the theme of nationalism in Europe. This book provides texts long enough for comprehensive critical study and makes available the central building blocks for informed theoretical discussion.
Contributors: Stuart Woolf, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, Otto Bauer, Marcel Mauss, C. A. Macartney, Federico Chabod, John Breuilly, Joshua A. Fishman and Bruno Tobia.

Nationalism has become so integral a part of life in Europe today that it is virtually impossible not to identify oneself with a nation-state, and yet nationalism is historically a modern phenomenon. This reader of classic texts draws on authors spanning a broad chronological period and from a variety of European countries--including John Stuart Mill and Otto Bauer--to explore the theme of nationalism in Europe. This book provides texts long enough for comprehensive critical study and makes available the central building blocks for informed theoretical discussion.
Contributors: Stuart Woolf, John Stuart Mill, Ernest Renan, Otto Bauer, Marcel Mauss, C. A. Macartney, Federico Chabod, John Breuilly, Joshua A. Fishman and Bruno Tobia.

Napoleon's wars were only a preliminary step in his larger plan to establish a rational state which would increase the pace of society's modernization. "Napoleon's Integration of Europe" studies the implications of this project for the relationship between France and the rest of Europe. Through a systematic comparison of the experiences of French domination in the majority of European states, Stuart Woolf examines the problems encountered by French bureaucrats in ruling a progressively expanding empire, and explores, through the eyes of the populations subjected to French rule, the nature of collaboration and resistance.
"Napoleon's Integration of Europe" not only chronicles the history of France, but also the histories of Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Poland, and Spain, at a crucial moment in the development of each. The first comparative study of Europe in the Napoleonic era, it provides an in-depth look at an early exercise in imperialism--in fact, the first attempt to create a single Europe.

Domestic Strategies offers a new reading of the historical sources in order to understand the social relations and strategies of laboring families toward the organization of productive processes and institutional arrangements in early modern Europe. In contrast to many other works, the essays in Domestic Strategies place laboring families as the actors on the historical scene, rather than as passive recipients of historical changes. Conceptual insights derived from both anthropology (Sahlins and Geertz) and sociology (Bourdieu, Elias and Mary Douglas) are applied to individual case studies of social groups from north-central Italy and the French Alps, and the whole offers an important new perspective on the working lives of European families during the early modern period and beyond.

A new edition of Primo Levi's classic memoir of the Holocaust, with an introduction by David Baddiel, author of Jews Don't Count 'With the moral stamina and intellectual pose of a twentieth-century Titan, this slightly built, dutiful, unassuming chemist set out systematically to remember the German hell on earth, steadfastly to think it through, and then to render it comprehensible in lucid, unpretentious prose... One of the greatest human testaments of the era' Philip Roth 'Levi's voice is especially affecting, so clear, firm and gentle, yet humane and apparently untouched by anger, bitterness or self-pity... If This Is a Man is miraculous, finding the human in every individual who traverses its pages' Philippe Sands 'The death of Primo Levi robs Italy of one of its finest writers... One of the few survivors of the Holocaust to speak of his experiences with a gentle voice' Guardian '[What] gave it such power... was the sheer, unmitigated truth of it; the sense of what a book could achieve in terms of expanding one's own knowledge and understanding at a single sitting... few writers have left such a legacy... A necessary book' Independent