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Scheda del Libro Autore: John Haycraft [1926-1996] Titolo: Italian Labyrinth Editore: Penguin Books Anno: 1987 (in lingua inglese) Copertina: Morbida Pagine: 314 Stato di conservazione: Più che Ottimo Descrizione M ost of us know Italy only through its myths - seaside Casanovas and medieval villages, pizzas and piazzas and the charmingly inefficient dolce vita. The real Italy is far more complex and fascinating and is brilliantly captured in this lively and authoritative book. Few people could thread their way through the Italian labyrinth more skilfully than John Haycraft, who has known and loved the country for almost half a century. Here he presents, with many revealing interviews, a definitive portrait of today's Italy: from economics, education and the arts to the central role of Italian family life and the 'broader families' of the different regions, not to mention the Mafia and the Church (deadly enemies, yet frequent allies). He shows too that efficient small businesses are as common as bureaucratic bribery and illuminates the traumatic task faced by a new but deeply traditionalist country in coming to terms with the modern world of drug trafficking, urban decay, feminism and fashion. «It is a tribute to the assiduity of Haycraft himself, who has combed Italy from Domodossola to Agrigento and interviewed everybody from old Hickory Pertini to cheeky chappie Dario Fo in a commendable attempt to explain the contradictory and the paradoxical'» [Jonathan Keates in the Observer] |