How do the places where people live help structure and restructure their sociopolitical identities and interests? In this book, renowned political geographer John A. Agnew presents a theoretical model that addresses the relation of place to politics and applies it to a series of historicogeographical case studies set in modern Italy. For Agnew, place is not just a static backdrop against which events occur, but a dynamic component of social, economic and political processes. He shows, for instance, how the lack of a common "landscape ideal" or physical image of Italy delayed the development of a sense of nationhood among Italians after unification. And Agnew uses the post-1992 victory of the Northern League over the Christian Democrats in many parts of northern Italy to explore how parties are replaced geographically during the periods of intense political change. Providing a fresh new approach to studying the role of space and place in social change, "Place and Politics in Modern Italy" should interest geographers, political scientists and social theorists.

John A. Agnew is professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author or coauthor of a number of books, most recently Geopolitics: Re-visioning World Politics and The Geography of the World Economy, third edition.