Whispering City

WARNING

You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com

Rome and Its Histories

R. J. B. Bosworth

View Inside Format: Hardcover
Price: $40.00

YUP

Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.

Also Available at

Also Available in:

e-book

Description Reviews

An accomplished Italianist looks beyond Rome's storied facades to offer insight into the many histories of one of the world's best-loved cities

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud claimed that Rome must be comprehended as "not a human dwelling place but a mental entity," in which the palaces of the Caesars still stand alongside modern apartment buildings in layers of brick, mortar, and memory. "The observer would need merely to shift the focus of his eyes, perhaps, or change his position, in order to call up a view of either the one or the other."

In this one-of-a-kind book, historian Richard Bosworth accepts Freud's challenge, drawing upon his expertise in Italian pasts to explore the many layers of history found within the Eternal City. Often beginning his analysis with sites and monuments that can still be found in contemporary Rome, Bosworth expands his scope to review how political groups of different eras—the Catholic Church, makers of the Italian nation, Fascists, and "ordinary" Romans (be they citizens, immigrants, or tourists)—read meaning into the city around them. Weaving in the city's quintessential figures (Garibaldi, Pius XII, Mussolini, and Berlusconi) and architectural icons (the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and EUR) with those forgotten or unknown, Bosworth explores the many histories that whisper their rival and competing messages and seek to impose their truth upon the passing crowds. But as this delightful study will reveal, Rome, that magisterial palimpsest, has never accepted a single reading of its historic meaning.

A renowned Anglophone Italianist, Richard Bosworth is Professor of History at Reading University and Winthrop Professor of History at the University of Western Australia. In 2011, he will become a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. He divides his time between Australia and England.

'A fabulous feast for mind and eye, to savour like a leisurely Roman lunch. Richard Bosworth brings the faiths and follies of imperial, papal, national, and fascist Rome to vivid and often hilarious life in picturing its palaces and churches, monuments and memorials, piazzas and privies, inscriptions and graffiti. With grace and wit he probes the manifold contradictions of a city uniquely splendid and squalid, universal and provincial, devout and profane, sacred and sinful, eternal and provisional, dedicated to yet derisive toward its ever-changing heritage.' --David Lowenthal, author of The Past is a Foreign Country

'A lively and original guide through the different attempts to claim ownership of the city's past. As Richard Bosworth shows in this wonderful book, Rome has never belonged to anyone but itself.' - Lucy Riall, author of Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero

'This is Bosworth in his pomp, a marvel of historical and literary erudition in a prose style that is always brilliant and brillante, giving us a fascinating insight into how Rome's many histories have been constructed by contending factions over the centuries.' - John Pollard, author of Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy

“Whatever mythic template is imposed, other, older histories come whispering through in everything from architecture and statuary to political posters. Bosworth’s city is a monument to history’s unpredictability and plurality.”—Michael Kerrigan, The Scotsman

“The author's long love affair with Rome and its history makes him a well-suited guide to the city, and his observations . . . are astute.”—Publishers Weekly

“[A] refreshingly original study…..With stealthy accuracy of focus, Bosworth demonstrates the ways in which Rome, during the past hundred years, has become a battleground in what he calls the ‘history wars’ fought by successive regimes, local or national.”—Jonathan Keates, Literary Review

“Bosworth has an advantage over many historians of Rome in that he knows the city intimately, having explored it on foot in 1967 when he was a Cambridge PhD student, as well as being a fluent Italian speaker: this gives his book personal authenticity and small-scale detail…..Fair-minded and well researched, this is a very readable, jargon-free history which I found both instructive and informative.”—Robert Carver, The Tablet

“…… [A] rich, well-documented and fascinating study. This book also takes a well-worn subject – the city of Rome and its pasts – but injects it with fresh life. Bosworth makes a detailed and convincing case for seeing Rome as the product of competing histories.”—John Foot, History Today Blog

“In Whispering City, Richard Bosworth offers a matchless history of Rome over the last two centuries.”—Ian Thomson, The Spectator

“… [A] fascinating and richly textured book.”—William Yeoman, The West Australian

“… few [books] have attempted to integrate the multiple aspects of how today’s Rome was produced over the past 200 years. None that I know of is more thorough or engaging than this one. … It is recommended reading for armchair flâneurs and hard-working tourists alike; don’t leave for Rome without it.”—Mia Fuller, Times Higher Education

“….something to be read – before or after a visit – that will provoke thought about histories, and the city, present and future.”—Rory Steele, Canberra Times

“Whispering City: Rome and its Histories offers maybe the most sophisticated and thought-provoking study of the season.”—Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

“… those with a nose for history will love this grand assembly of detail and debate about a truly magnificent city.”—Alexandra James, Weekend Australian

“[C]hallening but rewarding.”—Choice

“For anyone who loves Rome, Richard Bosworth’s Whispering City is a lively journey through its modern history and its memories of its past.”—Theodore K. Rabb, Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)

“Assiduously researched and always absorbing, this book should have an appeal far beyond lovers of Rome.”—Charles Freeman, Blue Guides

“The author makes clear that there have always been ‘many Romes in Rome’ and that it remains a city that, perhaps uniquely, defies monologic and monolithic schemes of interpretation.”—David H. J. Larmour, The Historian

ISBN: 9780300114713
Publication Date: April 26, 2011

358 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
33 b/w illus.

Also of Interest More from this Author