The Shortest History of Italy

The calendar, the university, the piano; the Vespa, the pistol and the pizzeria. It's easy to assume that inventions like these could only come from somewhere sure of its place in the world. Yet these pages reveal a land rife with uncertainty even as its influence spread. From the rise of the Roman Republic to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, from the glories of Renaissance Florence to the long struggle for unification, from Europe's first operas to the world's first ghettos, Ross King nimbly charts the chequered course of Italian history.