Garibaldi and the Making of Italy
By G M Trevelyan
Guiseppe Garabaldi, hero of the Italian Risorgimento, is one of history’s greatest, most charismatic leaders.
This is the final volume of British historian GM Trevelyan’s epic trilogy, covering his life and career. The first two books covered Garibaldi’s rise as a national figure in the Italian states, and how he navigated the web of European powers who sought to retain control of their territories. This final instalment shows Garibaldi at last achieving his dream of a united Italy, by way of compromise with the powerful republican Count Cavour.
George Macaulay Trevelyan was the most famous historian of his day, credited with inventing a form of history authorship that was accessible to the common reader. He clarifies the mosaic of political, social and cultural influence which made up pre-Risorgimento Italy, and draws a clear picture of the personalities and strategies of the major players involved – the Italian politicians Guiseppe Mazzini and Count Cavour, Italian King Victor Emmanuel II, and Napoleon III of France. The book concludes with an account of the hero Garibaldi’s death in 1882, aged nearly seventy-five, and an analysis of his exceptional personality and achievements.
The Garibaldi Trilogy is GM Trevelyan’s great work, and this concluding volume is essential reading for any student of Italian, and European, history.
‘Very few of the books which are classified as historical novels are half as exciting’ – Manchester Guardian
‘The whole character of the campaign is illustrated for us by Mr Trevelyan’s power of making even the lesser actors in it seem alive and real, and by vivid descriptions of the scenes in which the story is laid…History thus written will appeal to the general reader as well as to the historian’ – Times Literary Supplement
‘What is perhaps most frequently forgotten, or ignored, is the skill of his literary craftsmanship. Trevelyan was a born writer and a natural storyteller; and this, among historians, is a rare gift’ – historian JH Plumb
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