Le livre de Maurizio Isabella, Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions, modifie notre compréhension des révolutions de 1820-1821. Cette date, selon lui, représente un moment de transformation dans une « ère des révolutions » de longue portée, qui laissa sa marque sur les pratiques politiques et sur les périphéries méridionales de l’Europe qui furent à l’initiative du mouvement révolutionnaire. Comme le remarque M. Isabella, cet espace « démontre le mieux l’interconnexion […] entre les soulèvements européens, ibéro-américains et asiatiques. À travers ses vastes recherches archivistiques et son accent sur la mobilité et l’implication populaire lors des mouvements qui survinrent en Europe méridionale, M. Isabella forge un nouveau récit et une nouvelle chronologie de l’âge des révolutions.

This article examines how clerical reformers in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries utilized the Old Testament figure of Deborah to legitimize and encourage the active participation of elite laywomen in ecclesiastical reform. Focusing on key figures such as the countesses Matilda of Tuscany and Adelaide of Turin, the study shows how reformers crafted allegorical and historical links between biblical women and contemporary noblewomen, promoting the latter as agents of reform. Ecclesiastical reformers such as Peter Damian and Bonizo of Sutri made particular use of the Book of Judges’ Deborah to explore concepts of female secular authority defending the Latin Christian Church. The article argues that these reformers newly emphasized Deborah’s militant and authoritative role in the Old Testament rather than promoting existing late antique and early medieval readings of Deborah as a wife, widow, and mother. This shift in exegetical interpretations of Deborah directly supported the roles of elite laywomen in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries as vital co-participants in the ecclesiastical reform movement.

In the 1960s, the optimal size of integrated steel plants significantly increased, while small steel mills known as minimills were gaining ground in the sector. Based on the use of scrap and electricity, these small plants became an alternative technological model to blast furnace steelmaking. Among the major European steel nations, Italy and Spain stood out for the early adoption and significant participation of electric furnaces in total steel production. The article explains the factors that led to the proliferation of small independent steel mills and their subsequent transformation into minimills in these Mediterranean countries. The conclusion is that, despite the different institutional frameworks, the Italian and Spanish response to the steel shortage of the 1950s was similar. This led to the emergence of many small producers, which based their development on low installation costs. In Italy, these businesses leveraged the opportunities of the postwar economic miracle, had access to a favorable supply of raw materials due to the policy of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and were able to resiliently face the restructuring process of the 1980s led by the Commission of the European Communities (EC). In Spain, they took advantage of strong state intervention.

L’important ouvrage de Maurizio Isabella, Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions, propose une étude approfondie des révolutions des années 1820 en Espagne, au Portugal, dans la péninsule italienne et en Grèce, en mettant l’accent sur la mobilisation populaire. M. Isabella réfute l’idée selon laquelle l’Europe du Sud a été un espace périphérique durant l’âge des révolutions. Il cherche au contraire à démontrer que celle-ci a produit ses propres éléments de modernité et d’anti-modernité. En outre, bien qu’il laisse certaines questions en suspens concernant l’écriture d’une histoire globale des révolutions, le livre ouvre à de nouvelles réflexions particulièrement stimulantes sur les manières de faire une histoire transnationale, connectée et comparative.