The period after Italian Unification saw a marked increase in the volume of publications, magazines and books intended specifically for a female readership which was made up of girls and married women. It also saw the rise of the professional woman writer and journalist. Drawing on two of the most popular genres, the novel (in particular the domestic novel) and conduct literature, this article examines their representations of the city and urban life. It notes that while the physical transformation of major towns and cities was bringing in its wake far-reaching changes to the experience of urban life, the literature for women treats the city as an almost entirely abstract entity with few distinctive characteristics. Instead, the focus of these writings is on the drawing up of rulebooks designed to enable women to negotiate urban life without bringing opprobrium to bear on themselves or their families

The article draws a comparison between nineteenth-century Turin and Rome, linking the growth of technical bureaucracies in the municipal institutions of both cities to the local struggles for control over urban space. In both post-1848 Turin and post-1870 Rome, the implementation of new institutional reforms offered local city councils an opportunity to gain more power and autonomy than they had enjoyed in the recent past. The organization and the role of municipal technical services were therefore affected, with quite opposite results, by the conflicts opened with the state about the redefinition of the province of local government

This article argues that it was through their common relationship to the commercial environment formed by the city that the independent lower middle classes were able to construct a collective identity. The article examines these identities first in the context of a comparison between Rome and Milan, and then within the provincial towns of Lombardy. It suggests that the concern of the petite bourgeoisie towards their city and its administration lay at the heart of an ‘apolitical’ conception of politics that privileged their own interests as traders, taxpayers and citizens over those of other residents. The consequences of this are explored in a final section devoted to the immediate post-war era.

This article focuses on two points of disorder and social-political tension in the histories of Milan and Turin: 1898 and 1917. It examines the reasons for different shapes of protest during the ‘ Fatti di Maggio ‘ in 1898 and the events in the summer of 1917. Both cities are the hubs of Italian industrialization and modernization but in 1898, 1917 and later in 1919-20, ‘pre-modern’ protests about the price of bread were melded together with modern political mobilization. This article also examines the growth of working-class suburbs in each city and their relationship to the ‘historic city centres’ on the one hand and the rural hinterland on the other. The uniqueness of protest in each city is related to the political economy and politics of Milan and Turin and the specific relationships between city centre, suburbs and hinterlands in each. The importance of municipal history for the national historical narrative of modern Italy is thus emphasized in this article.

The article focuses on the representation of Milan in Massimo Bontempelli's 1920 short novel La vita operosa. In this novel the protagonist-narrator, a writer and journalist returning to Milan after the end of the war, is confronted with a city which has lost all its points of reference and has turned into a place dominated by the ethics of speed and profit. In this context, the protagonist's adventures in Milan assume the features of an ironic and self-ironic journey of discovery for the letterato who finds himself having to redefine his identity and role in a society whose taste and values have profoundly changed.

Italian programmes can now be taken in fteen of Australia's thirty-nine universities-a contraction from their offer in twenty-six universities in 1990. In order to promote collaboration among Italianists and Italian scholars in both Australia and New Zealand, the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) was established in 2000, under a management representing seven universities. ACIS’ work includes the organization of conferences (the next to be held at the University of Western Australia in July 2003), sponsorship of collaborative research projects and the award of annual scholarships for Honours and postgraduate students to work in Italy.

Despite its hardly enticing title (‘Making Politics Count’) and the equally uninspiring choice of topic for its plenary lecture (‘Political Science After September 11’), the 52nd Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association (PSA), hosted by the University of Aberdeen, was an apparent success: it stimulated interdisciplinar y discussion among an international audience while also providing an arena for the presentation of comparative perspectives on issues, such as European politics and devolution, which are at the forefront of academic interest.