Editing Unification of Italy (section)

==Historiography==
{{See also|Brigantaggio|Southern question}}
[[File:Francesco Hayez 048.jpg|thumb|Massimo d'Azeglio, a [[Moderate Party (Italy)|moderate]] liberal statesman, novelist, and painter (1798–1866)]]

Italian unification is still a topic of debate. According to [[Massimo d'Azeglio]], centuries of foreign domination created remarkable differences in Italian society, and the role of the newly formed government was to face these differences and to create a unified Italian society. Still today the most famous quote of Massimo d'Azeglio is, "L'Italia è fatta. Restano da fare gli italiani" ('Italy has been made. Now it remains to make Italians').<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/massimo-d-azeglio/ |title=Massimo D Azeglio nell'Enciclopedia Treccani |publisher=Treccani.it |access-date=28 January 2015}}</ref>

The economist and politician [[Francesco Saverio Nitti]] criticized the newly created state for not considering the substantial economic differences between [[northern Italy]], a [[Free market|free-market economy]], and [[southern Italy]], a state [[protectionism|protectionist]] economy, when integrating the two. When the Kingdom of Italy extended the free-market economy to the rest of the country, the south's economy collapsed under the weight of the north's. Nitti contended that this change should have been much more gradual in order to allow the birth of an adequate entrepreneurial class able to make strong investments and initiatives in the south. These mistakes, he felt, were the cause of the economic and social problems which came to be known as the [[southern question]] (''Questione Meridionale'').<ref>Francesco Saverio Nitti, L'Italia all'alba del secolo XX, Casa Editrice Nazionale Roux e Viarengo, Torino-Roma, 1901{{pn|date=April 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Nitti |first1=Francesco Saverio |last2=Masi |first2=Domenico De |title=Napoli e la questione meridionale, 1903-2005 |date=2004 |publisher=Guida Editori |isbn=978-88-7188-876-7 }}{{pn|date=April 2025}}</ref>

The politician, historian, and writer [[Gaetano Salvemini]] commented that although Italian unification had been a strong opportunity for both a moral and economic rebirth of Italy's ''Mezzogiorno'' ([[southern Italy]]), because of a lack of understanding and action on the part of politicians, corruption and organized crime flourished in the south.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Riall |first1=Lucy |title=Which road to the south? Revisionists revisit the Mezzogiorno |journal=Journal of Modern Italian Studies |date=January 2000 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=89–100 |doi=10.1080/135457100362670 }}</ref> The Marxist theorist [[Antonio Gramsci]] criticized Italian unification for the limited presence of the masses in politics, as well as the lack of modern [[land reform]] in Italy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Cammett |first1=John M. |title=Two Recent Polemics on the Character of the Italian Risorgimento |journal=Science & Society |date=1963 |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=433–457 |jstor=40400981 }}</ref>

[[Revisionism of Risorgimento]] produced a clear radicalization of Italy in the mid-20th century, following the fall of the [[House of Savoy|Savoy monarchy]] and [[fascism]] during World War II. Reviews of the historical facts concerning Italian unification's successes and failures continue to be undertaken by domestic and foreign academic authors, including [[Denis Mack Smith]], [[Christopher Duggan (historian)|Christopher Duggan]], and [[Lucy Riall]]. Recent work emphasizes the central importance of nationalism.<ref>{{cite book|editor-first1=Silvana |editor-last1=Patriarca |editor-first2=Lucy |editor-last2=Riall |title=The Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Italy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B5NoA_2uAKkC&pg=PA1|year=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|pages=1–3|isbn=978-0230248007}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/13532944.2014.935092| title=Recent works on the Risorgimento Edited by Andrea del Cornò and Nick Carter – the Risorgimento Revisited: Nationalism and Culture in Nineteenth-century Italy, edited by Silvana Patriarca and Lucy Riall, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012, xii +303 pp., £67.00 (Hardback), ISBN 978-0230248007| journal=Modern Italy| volume=19| issue=3| pages=323–324| year=2014| last1=Biagini| first1=Eugenio F.| s2cid=232397474}}</ref>