The title of Christopher Thorpe’s study encapsulates its ambitious mission: to provide a cultural sociological account of English (and subsequently British) cultural representations of Italy and the Italians over a period of almost six hundred years. As such, and as confirmed by the exclusively anglophone bibliography, the book is not primarily aimed at Italianists. Rather, the two main audiences envisaged are cultural sociologists and humanities scholars working in and around the Anglo-Italian interface. Nonetheless, and despite some serious limitations, this longue durée-inspired study will be relevant to scholars and students interested in sociological approaches to, and the transnational reception of, Italy and Italian culture (albeit transnationalism is not explicitly addressed).

The book comprises seven main chapters. The first sets out the methodological, theoretical and historical parameters of the study, while the remainder trace the evolution of cultural representations of Italy and Italians in England/Britain from the Renaissance to the present. In theoretical terms, the study takes issue with the dominance of ‘the Saidian paradigm’, whereby representations of cultural others are characterised by forms of negative power and subjected to ‘the binary logic of dominator/dominated’ (p. 10). By tracing the oscillations in the fortunes of Italy in England/Britain and highlighting occasions in which Italy and Italians are presented as superior to English/British culture, the book exposes the limitations of that paradigm and presents a more holistic and balanced account of representations of cultural others. Methodologically, Thorpe’s study combines analytical tools from two traditionally opposing schools to provide a comprehensive sociological analysis of cultural representations. Field Theory is deployed to analyse the social sphere in which cultural works are produced, circulate and are distributed; while concepts from Yale School Cultural Sociology (YSCS) are deployed to explore the meanings, values and affects structuring and shaping collective representations of Italy and Italians as they evolve over time. The primacy of YSCS is evidenced by the framing of historical events effecting social change in accordance with Jeffrey Alexander’s theorisation of ‘cultural trauma’, and by the recurrent recourse to Alexander’s work to explain key sociological concepts such as the development of the ‘civil sphere’, the ‘ritual-like’ performances and processes through which cultural meanings are made in modern society, and the associated distinction between ‘sacred good’ and ‘sacred evil’.

The chronological account of cultural representations of Italy and Italians is organised into five periods defined by major political, social and cultural developments in Britain. These include England’s break with the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century; the regicide of Charles I in the seventeenth century; the advent of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century and the ensuing changes to social organisation and cultural production over the course of the nineteenth century; and, finally, the increasing commodification and homogenisation of culture amid processes of globalisation since the Second World War. Throughout, the analysis centres on which elements of Italy past and present featured in cultural representations at different historical junctures, whether they were positively or negatively constructed, and to what purpose they were put in the context of political, social and cultural change. By way of example, Chapter 3 addresses the period from the regicide of Charles I in 1649 to c. 1760. It deploys the concept of ‘cultural trauma’ to convey the symbolic significance of the regicide and the ensuing civil wars, and it explores how a divided aristocracy turned to representations of Republican Rome to affirm and communicate the legitimacy of their role within the newly founded constitution. Thereafter, the chapter traces how references to imperial Rome became central to the collective representation of the British empire as the greatest civilisation ever known. It further relates the growing appetite for Renaissance art, artifacts and architecture to the iconic status of classical Roman aesthetics and subject matter among the aristocracy at the dawn of the Grand Tour. The chapter closes with consideration of how the glorification of Italy-past is bound up with the downgrading of Italy-present as the primary threat to Britain amid the latter’s rivalry with Catholic France.

The strength of the book lies in its demonstration of the historical centrality of representations of Italy and Italians to English/British politics, society and culture. The analysis is indebted to existing works of historical synthesis; these are carefully chosen to construct a compelling and generally convincing account of the significance of representations of Italy and its people in England/Britain at distinct historical moments. Moreover, the book succeeds in demonstrating the value of the long historical view in making connections between seemingly disparate but related spheres of cultural influence and the representations of Italy corresponding to them.

However, Thorpe’s study is not without its limitations, especially for Italianists, who will likely balk at the complete disregard for the role played by Italian (as well as other) cultural representations in shaping English/British constructions of Italy and Italians. This is particularly true of those instances in which British representations echo familiar Italian discourses (e.g., negative comparisons of Italy-present with Italy-past) or when, from the nineteenth century on, increased migration from Italy and the expansion of the British middle classes provide greater direct access to Italians, Italy and Italian culture. More seriously, the disregard for Italian cultural history occasionally results in false claims about the provenance of distinct cultural discourses or tropes; the most clamorous of these locates the origin of ‘the gendering of Italy as female and a fallen woman’ not in the work of Dante and his successors but ‘in the travelogues of female aristocrats during the early part of the eighteenth century’ (p. 146). It is, however, the final chapter, dedicated to representations since the Second World War, that is the most problematic. While the overarching explanation for the increasing commodification, homogenisation and marginalisation of Italian culture in postwar Britain is undoubtedly valid, the restriction of the analysis to British cultural products (cookery programmes, specialist travel magazines and popular journalism) is not. Rather, the processes of globalisation underpinning Thorpe’s explanation imply that the ‘visions of Italy and Italians’ circulating in contemporary Britain are just as likely to be the product of direct encounters not only with Italy and Italians but also with Italian cultural products such as literary works in translation and the myriad screen productions available on transnational media platforms.

In short, Thorpe’s study is at its weakest when addressing the contemporary context of a marginalised Italy and at its strongest when analysing those historical periods in which Italy remained an important reference point in England/Britain. It is likely to have a limited readership among Italianists; however, for scholars and students interested in the reception of Italy in England/Britain from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, the book offers an accessible and wide-ranging account of why and how cultural representations of Italy and Italians responded to the political, social and cultural developments shaping Britain at different moments in time.