150 years later, Italian unity incomplete

Next month Italy will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its unification. Now, as in 1861, some Italians question whether union was a good thing or bad.

Author David Gilmour considers the question in his book on Italy’s recent history, “The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples.”

A century and a half after Garibaldi, Cavour, Mazzini and others helped create the modern Italian state, it remains in many ways divided, he argues.

Among the most noticeable problems is the country’s north-south divide, according to a review of Gilmour’s work in The Economist. In 1861 only one Italian in 40 spoke the language (King Victor Emmanuel II barely did so).