TY - BOOK ID - 85466917 TI - Victorian radicals and Italian democrats PY - 2014 SN - 1782042628 0861933222 PB - Suffolk : Boydell & Brewer, DB - UniCat KW - Radicalism KW - Intellectuals KW - History KW - Political activity. KW - Mazzini, Giuseppe, KW - Mazzini, Joseph KW - Italy KW - Politics and government KW - 1800 - 1899 KW - Co-operative Tour. KW - Democratic Future. KW - Giuseppe Mazzini. KW - Global Democracy. KW - Republican Italy. KW - Risorgimento. KW - Social Reformers. KW - Transnational Dream. KW - Victorian England. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85466917 AB - This book takes a fresh look at Victorian England's "love of Italy", traditionally constructed as the reserve of the established classes, by revealing a forgotten connection between the radical, Victorian "non-elites" and the Risorgimento democrats. The republican exile Giuseppe Mazzini first introduced the idea of "Italy" to workers keen on self-improvement; his radical ideas circulated in reading rooms and co-operative societies, where republican Italy became a transnational dream. Indeed, when Italy was unified under a constitutional monarch in 1860, British Mazzinians were bitterly disappointed, and subsequently supported Italian republicans for decades; undeterred by Italy's fin de siècle crisis and the rise of fascism, they championed Italian anti-fascists who associated themselves with Mazzini's principles of global democracy. Drawing on a wide range of material, the book provides fresh insights both into the history of Victorian radicalism in Britain, and to the history of the Risorgimento. ER -