Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911
This 1995 book is a medical and social history of Italy's largest city during the cholera epidemics of 1884 and 1910–11. It explores the factors that exposed Naples to risk; it examines such popular responses as social hysteria, riots and religiosity; and it traces therapeutic strategies. Cholera also became a metaphor for discontent with the regime: the 1884 outbreak was a national issue which led to the rebuilding of the city amidst widespread corruption. The book sets Naples in a comparative international framework; the disease is also related to larger historical issues, such as the nature of liberal statecraft, the 'Southern Question', mass emigration, organised crime, urban renewal, and the medical profession.
- The first major study of cholera in modern Italy, in the classic tradition of Richard Evans' celebrated study Death in Hamburg (Oxford University Press)
- A unique account of the rebuilding of a major city (Italy's largest) under the influence of a cholera epidemic
- The only study of an epidemic concealed by the state for political advantage
Product details
July 2002Paperback
9780521893862
496 pages
229 × 152 × 28 mm
0.72kg
6 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I. Sanitary Anxieties:
- 1. A city at risk
- Part II. The Public Epidemic of 1884:
- 2. From Provence to the Bay of Naples
- 3. Death in Naples
- 4. Survival and recovery
- Part III. Risanamento and Miasma:
- 5. Rebuilding medicine and politics
- Part IV. The Secret Epidemic of 1910–11:
- 6. The return of cholera:
- 1910
- 7. Concealment and crisis:
- 1911
- Conclusion: Neapolitan cholera and Italian politics
- Bibliography.