Tempo di guerra. Conflitti, patriottismi e tradizioni politiche nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia (1859-66)

Time of War. Conflicts, Patriotisms and Political Traditions in the Italian Mezzogiorno (1859-66)
The article interprets the end of Neapolitan kingdom through the paradigm of conflict and political violence. The clash between national projects is outlined according to three points of view: civil war, opposite patriotism and community alternative policies. The scheme defines the split of the community in two separate blocks with incompatible projects, but still co-existing in an homogeneous society, both linguistically and culturally. In the first part, the focus is on the chronological reconstruction of the southern crisis within the early construction phase of a unitary state (1859-66), which is necessary to check the real coexistence of the proposed alternatives. The same track is used afterwards in order to analyze the main fractures that came into a resolution in those years, to understand if this was indeed the outcome of a long-term political and ideological process influenced by past events.