The book L’Italia dell’antropocene edited by Gabriella Corona is now available.

The aim of this book is to look at the history of Italy over the last century and a half through the category of the ‘Anthropocene’. Our planet has entered a historical phase in which human activities increasingly condition natural settings. Acknowledging that human beings are a geological and ecological force, capable of transforming the laws of nature and starvation, suggests a profound change in the way the relationship between environment and society is represented, entails the use of knowledge models based on cooperation between different disciplinary knowledge and languages, and overturns the points of observation from which to investigate the past. The Anthropocene requires us to bring nature back into history.

The book proposes a series of paths aimed at identifying and interpreting the ways in which our country has participated in these changes, evaluating their causes, repercussions, implications and responsibilities. By outlining historical phases and turning points, the author also identifies specificities and peculiarities. The effects of the climate crisis are intertwined and overlap with longer-term environmental problems linked both to the structural features of the peninsula and to political choices, development models, social processes and the character of the cultural debate.

Gabriella Corona is a research director at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies of the National Research Council, of which he is director. She is editor in chief of the international journal ‘Global Environment. A Joumal of Transdisciplinary History’ and co-director of ‘Meridiana. Rivista di Storia e Scienze Sociali’. Her published monographs include: Breve storia dell’ambiente in Italia (Il Mulino, 2015) and J ragazzi del piano. Napoli e le ragioni dell’ambientalismo urbano (Donzelli, 2007).

For further information, please visit the publisher’s website.