This new volume edited by two significant scholars of Italian history and politics offers students and scholars a sweeping overview of the modern history of a country that has played a crucial role in the history of Europe over the past two centuries. A team of experts scrutinises the main political, cultural, and socio-economic features and the historical "turning points" of this still relatively young state. It also explores the forces behind the unification of Italy in the 1860s, the rise of fascism under Benito Mussolini, the hammer blows of both world wars, the impact of the Cold War, and the modernisation of Italian society and high levels of politicisation in national life through recent decades, including the Silvio Berlusconi years and the re-emergence of right-wing politics.