Social Fear and Institutional Drifts. Late 19th - Early 20th Century

This collective work is the outcome of the International Workshop 1869 and Beyond: Political and Institutional Crises between the 19th and the 20th Centuries which took place in Milan at Catholic University on November 30-December 1, 2018. The aforementioned event was conceived in the perspective of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the massive political and institutional emergency faced by the Italian government in the crucial year 1869. In that year, mass riots against an unpopular grist tax, a major financial scandal, private feuds, and an affair turned into a political trial were all elements that revealed the perils of Italy’s arduous path toward normalcy and governability shortly after the young nation had completed its struggle for national independence. The crisis of 1869 was described by many nineteenth-century Italian citizens of different political affiliations and cultural backgrounds as a dangerous drift toward the loss of those civic values that had fostered a sense of unified national identity. Building on the fruitful discussions came out of the aforementioned international seminar, this monographic issue singles out a specific topic "that of the social fears and institutional drifts" in the late 19th Century and analyzes this topic by opening to comparative and global perspectives.