Volume 55, Number 19 · December 4, 2008
Italy Against Itself
By Alexander Stille
La deriva: perché l'Italia rischia il naufragio (Adrift: Why Italy Risks a Shipwreck)
by Gian Antonio Stella and Sergio Rizzo
Milan: Rizzoli, 308 pp., €19.50
La paura e la speranza (Fear and Hope)
by Giulio Tremonti
Milan: Mondadori, 111 pp., €16.00
Se li conosci li eviti (If You Know Them, You Avoid Them)
by Peter Gomez and Marco Travaglio
Milan: Chiarelettere, 571 pp., €14.60 (paper)
In late April, Gianni Alemanno, a former neofascist, was elected mayor of Rome, two weeks after Silvio Berlusconi and a right-wing coalition had come back to power with a sizable majority in Italy's national elections. Following the mayoral contest, the international press made much of the crowds of neofascist youth giving the Roman salute on the steps of the Campidoglio. But perhaps more significant was the parade of Roman taxi drivers triumphantly honking their horns nearby. They were jubilant not so much at the election of a former right-wing bully boy as at the defeat of a center-left administration that had tried to expand the number of taxi licenses. Cabs have become notoriously hard to find in Rome; but the attempt to improve city transportation ran afoul of the lobby of medallion owners, for whom the licenses are a valuable nest egg in an uncertain world.
Review, 4979 words
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