cover image Italy: The Enduring Culture

Italy: The Enduring Culture

Jonathan Charles White. Continuum, $29.95 (346pp) ISBN 978-0-7185-0257-7

From Siena's 1330s frescoes depicting good and bad government to a photo of Catherine Malfitano's suicidal leap in a TV version of Tosca, Italy: The Enduring Culture examines literature, art history, opera, television, architecture, film, economics, sexuality, the mob and demographics in Italy, from the rise of commerce and cities in Dante's time to the present. Jonathan White, a literature lecturer at the University of Essex, also explores the effect of Italian emigration on urban culture what exactly is ""Italian"" about the espresso bars that blanket the globe? ( July)