New Books in Italian Studies

By Marshall PoeSociety & Culture Science Social Sciences History

New Books in Italian Studies episodes

October 05 The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory, 1924-2024 with Amy King (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In this episode, I speak with Dr Amy King of Bristol University about her book, The Afterlife of a Fascist Murder: Giacomo Matteotti in Myth and Memory, 1924–2024, published by Cambridge University Press in 2026.
The year 2024 marked a century since socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti's assassination. Widely commemorated in Italy, he's often remembered within a national narrative of antifascist resistance. But how was this narrative built and how has the far right responded? This Element traces the construction and mobilisation of Matteotti's memory over the last century, analysing the role of grief in the early antifascist movement, and identifying the role memory played in bringing together Allies, partisans and political parties during the construction of the democratic Republic. Based on primary sources from international archives, it also adds a transnational lens to the study of a figure so often thought of in national terms. The Element closes by examining how far-right parties whose lineage traces back to Mussolini's regime have engaged with the afterlife of a man whose murder is an evergreen reminder of the centrality of violence to Fascism in its earliest days.
Dr. Amy King is a Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Bristol, UK. She is the author of The Politics of Sacrifice: Remembering Italy’s Rogo di Primavalle, which examines the memory of a 1973 arson attack on a far-right family in Rome during the Years of Lead. The book won the First Book Prize from the American Association for Italian Studies in 2024 and was published in Italian by Donzelli last year.
Chris Millington is Professor of Modern European History and lead of the Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of eight books including Murder in Marseille: Right-Wing Terrorism in 1930s Europe ((Manchester University Press, 2025), The Invention of Terrorism in France, 1904-1939 (Stanford University press, 2023), and France in the Second World War Collaboration, Resistance, Holocaust, Empire (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

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44 min
October 01 The Romans: A People’s History with Paul Chrystal (Reaktion, 2026)
The Romans loom large in the imagination, credited with roads, aqueducts, politics, plumbing and empire – yet these familiar achievements tell only part of the story. The Romans: A People’s History (Reaktion, 2026) turns away from generals and emperors to focus instead on the millions of ordinary men and women whose voices rarely made it into history. Drawing on inscriptions, literature, household objects, mosaics and myth, it reveals how plebeian lives shaped the culture that still surrounds us: from food and labour to beliefs, entertainment, violence and political resistance. Not shying away from contentious subjects – misogyny, slavery, racism and the enjoyment of brutal spectacle – Paul Chrystal offers a rich, human-centred account of Roman civilization, suggesting that what ordinary Romans endured and achieved still echoes in how we live, argue and govern today.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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50 min
September 01 Edward Cutler, "This Beautiful Country: How Italy's Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilisation" (Chelsea Green, 2026)
In This Beautiful Country: How Italy's Nature Shaped Its Culture and Civilisation (Chelsea Green, 2026), discover Italy’s unique ecological past and how it has shaped its present—and its future, with this riveting look at the incredibly diverse natural history and our need to preserve it.
Italy is renowned for its antiquity, classical literature, philosophy, and modern-day culture, cuisine and fashion, but what has gone largely overlooked – and undocumented, even by its people – is its uniquely biodiverse landscape and wildlife. Italy has over 58,000 different species of wildlife, of which 4,777 are endemic, the highest in Europe. Italy provides a home for a third of all European flora and fauna, with a vast range of fruit and vegetable varieties: more grape varieties than France, more wheat than the US and more olives than Spain. 
Edward Cutler, an art historian by trade, began to explore this history when, four years ago on his small Tuscan farm, he found a salamander that turned out to be endemic to that specific location. In understanding how Italy came together as a country, one of the youngest and still geologically active landscapes in the world, and made up of mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes, glacial lakes, desert islands, caves and forests, Ed realised that this natural history has also had an incredibly important influence on its human history, especially its food culture and low-impact agriculture. And along the way, Ed discovers that Italy once was home to pygmy elephants, giant killer hedgehogs, and vampire-toothed deer. Today we can see the relics of those ancient creatures in the flashy blue lizard of Capri, gladiator crabs under the forum in Rome, the crested porcupine, the beautiful Apennine chamois and of course the Marzipan brown bear and Italian grey wolf, not forgetting its flora, including the world’s rarest Christmas tree in Sicily.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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51 min
August 22 Jane Draycott, "Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome" (Yale UP, 2025)
Fulvia was born into wealth, privilege, and prestige around the year 80 BCE, yet there was nothing inherently special about her—she was not a saint, an empress, or a queen. But during the years leading up to the fall of the Roman Republic, Fulvia was moving in the most powerful social circles, and by her death in 40 BCE she had amassed a degree of political and military power unprecedented for a woman.
Fulvia’s success came at considerable cost, however. None of her three marriages to politically powerful men—most famously to Marc Antony—lasted, and three of her five children died violently. She was repeatedly ridiculed for daring to step outside the confines of the domestic sphere. The deliberate and systematic destruction of her reputation shaped her legacy for two millennia.
Ample literary, documentary, and archaeological sources for Fulvia exist, yet most contemporary depictions of her were extremely negative. In Fulvia: The Woman Who Broke All the Rules in Ancient Rome (Yale UP, 2025) historian Jane Draycott, reading between the lines of the ancient evidence, proposes a more nuanced interpretation. Using Fulvia as a guide, she invites readers to visit an unfamiliar Rome, one in which women played a crucial role during Rome’s violent transition from a republic to the dictatorship of the Roman Empire.
Jane Draycott is a historian and archaeologist, and the author of Cleopatra’s Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow and co-director of the university’s Games and Gaming Lab.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
YouTube Channel: here
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1 hr 2 min
August 07 Gianluca Fantoni, "Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers: A History of the Jewish Brigade" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)
Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers: A History of the Jewish Brigade (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2026) tells
the compelling story of the Jewish Brigade Infantry Group (JBG), a
five-thousand-strong military unit, recruited primarily from the Jewish
population of Palestine, and the only exclusively Jewish military unit
to fight under the British flag during the Second World War. Gianluca
Fantoni reconstructs the military and human experience of the brigade in
Italy and investigates its enduring and controversial place in memory
and public debate.
Formed in 1944, the JBG saw combat in the
final stages of the Italian campaign, where its soldiers fought with
distinction against German forces. After the war, many of its members –
who often had little or no military training, and included artists,
scientists, and farmers – engaged in clandestine efforts to smuggle
Holocaust survivors and weapons into Palestine, laying the groundwork
for the future Israeli state. Others sought retribution against Nazis
and collaborators in acts that revealed both the trauma of genocide and
the desire for justice.
Far more than a conventional military history, Soldiers, Angels, and
Avengers is both a critical study of the political uses of history and a
vivid, passionate narrative that brings to life the men and women of
the brigade. Accessible and engaging, this book offers readers a rare
lens through which to understand the intersections of war, memory, and
politics in twentieth-century Europe.
Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett
Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host
of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at [email protected]. Blusky and IG: @robbyref
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1 hr 1 min
July 18 Bradford A. Bouley, "The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
In 1644 four norcini
or pork butchers were accused of killing not pigs, but seven of their
fellow citizens, stripping the meat from the bones, then combining it
with pig to make sausages, which were then sold to Romans from their
shop behind the Pantheon. In the multiple pamphlets describing this
supposed crime, the authors of this accusation blamed residents of Rome
themselves, who had become so obsessed with meat that they turned a
blind eye to
such horrendous acts. This fabricated story points to an underlying
reality—that in the early seventeenth century, a series of popes
dramatically increased the amount of food and wine consumed by Romans,
culminating in a per capita consumption of over a pound of meat per day
during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (d. 1644).
The Barberini Butchers: Meat, Murder, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy (University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2026) traces the efforts and
activities of a range of actors who strove to bring meat to the Roman
table. Dr. Bradford A. Bouley shows how Rome’s preoccupation with food
was the result of papal policy in the aftermath of the Reformation;
food, and especially meat, served as religious and political propaganda,
symbolizing the correctness of the Catholic faith and demonstrating the
extent of papal power. Dr. Bouley details the dramatic reorganization
of Roman foodways needed to satisfy this demand for meat, as large herds
of animals had to be funneled from the countryside to the city. This
consumption was ultimately not sustainable, triggering a crisis that
fueled sensational rumors
of murder and cannibalism and eventually, Dr. Bouley contends, sparked
the outbreak of civil war, as vassals rebelled against papal oversight.

The Barberini Butchers
recovers this significant episode in food, environmental, and cultural
history, one that brings early modern politics and history into
conversation with concerns over human use of natural resources and
consumption of animal products that continue to resonate clearly today.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

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50 min
July 07 Krzysztof Rowiński, "Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film" (Routledge, 2026)
Today’s guest, Krzysztof Rowiński, is the author of Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption: Twentieth Century Literature and Film
(Routledge, 2026). This book focuses on the concept of non- redemptive
failure, a type of failure that is not part of a larger narrative of
success or narrative redemption, with attention to how the concept
functions between literature, critical theory, and other fields.
Examining literature and film from mid- twentieth- century Poland,
Italy, and the United States, it traces productive effects of failure
which cannot survive into the future, yet have an important,
transformative impact in the moment in which they occur. The book
engages with the work of John Williams, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Bruno
Jasieński, proposing a theory of failure at the intersection of literary
study, performance theory, and political thought. In discussing these
examples, the book examines the place of failure in the broader context
of modern and contemporary US American, Italian, and Polish literary and
cultural traditions.
Because of its interdisciplinary potential, this study might appeal
to readers in art history, philosophy, political theory, and other
fields within the humanities and social sciences. Failure Narratives Beyond Redemption
offers a framework that could not only spotlight the contribution of
literary studies to the topic, in the form of narrative analysis but
also become part of the theoretical apparatus for further research in
these fields.
Jane Hwang Degenhardt is Professor English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Globalizing Fortune on the Early Modern Stage (Oxford UP, 2022) and Islamic Conversion and Christian Resistance on the Early Modern Stage (Edinburgh UP, 2012). She is also a co-editor of the academic journal English Literary Renaissance.
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47 min
June 23 Catherine Fletcher, "The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires" (Princeton UP, 2026)
In Renaissance Italy, the gun was not only a tool of war but also a
desirable object, a luxury item carried at court. Guns were in use on
the battlefield by 1440; later in that century Leonardo da Vinci
sketched a design for a faster-firing, more portable handgun that could
be hidden beneath a cloak. As the gun proliferated in society, it became
both a means of self-defence and a threat to civic order. In The Firearm Revolution: From Renaissance Italy to the European Empires (Princeton
University Press, 2026), historian Catherine Fletcher explores the
emergence of firearms in Renaissance Italy and beyond, describing the
social transformations that accompanied the evolution of the handgun
from innovative military technology to widely used personal accessory.
Fletcher shows that as guns became smaller and the new wheellock
mechanism made concealed carry possible, Italian states increasingly
tried to control their use—even as they viewed firearms as necessary for
their militias. In the end, Fletcher reports, the importance of civic
defence trumped the concern for social order. As guns became ever more
acceptable, stories of how firearms aided Europeans’ overseas conquests
created a new and more positive image for a weapon once considered the
devil’s work. Debates over the regulation of firearms five centuries
ago—which included arguments over the restriction of gun ownership, the
use of guns for self-defence and the regulation of an armed militia—in
many ways anticipate discussions about gun control today. Fletcher’s
groundbreaking account sheds new light on how governments weighed the
competing priorities of defence and social order as they set out to
build empires.
Catherine Fletcher is professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan
University. She is the author of several books on early modern Italy,
including The Roads to Rome, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance and The Black Prince of Florence: The Life of Alessandro de’ Medici.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University
of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies;
Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual)
History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature.
YouTube Channel: here
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

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47 min
June 15 Jake Dyble, "Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany" (Boydell Press, 2025)
Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant’s cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use.
In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany (Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked. It reveals the gap between General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient, universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the evolution of institutions in economic development.
Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy.
This interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social.
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies

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54 min
June 12 Jake Dyble, "Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany" (Boydell Press, 2025)
Commercial seafaring, both dangerous and with large amounts
of capital at stake, was the source of the risk-management institutions
that still undergird the global economy today. A key institution of
early modern risk management was General Average, a procedure used to
redistribute extraordinary costs arising from a maritime venture between
all financially interested parties. For example, should one merchant’s
cargo be jettisoned to lighten a ship in a storm, the loss would be
shared pro rata by the shipper and all the cargo-owners. A risk-sharing
practice, different from the risk-shifting of marine insurance which
became established relatively late, General Average is still in widespread use.
In Managing Maritime Risk in Early Modern Europe: General Average in Law and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Tuscany
(Boydell Press, 2025), Jake Dyble explores how General Average worked.
It reveals the gap between
General Average in law and how it worked on the ground. It shows how
General Average partitioned a wide array of business costs, thereby
performing a significant role in structuring maritime commerce, managing
risk and promoting shipping and trade. In addition, the book discusses
how far General Average was a feature of a supposedly ancient,
universal, customary maritime law, and contributes to debates about the
evolution of institutions in economic development.
Dr Jake Dyble is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padova, Italy.
This
interview is conducted by Dr Lewis Wade, a Humboldt Research Fellow at
the University of Bamberg. He is the author of the prize-winning Privilege, Economy and State in Old Regime France and can be found on Bluesky @wadehistory.bsky.social.

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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/italian-studies
36 min

About New Books in Italian Studies

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This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.