A History Of Sicily

Author : Jamie Mackay
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2021-07-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781786637734

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The Invention of Sicily by Jamie Mackay Pdf

Whether you’re vacationing in Italy or simply an armchair traveler, this guide to the Mediterranean island of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the region’s rich 3,000-year history and culture. A rich and fascinating cultural history of the Mediterranean’s enigmatic heart Sicily is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and for over 2000 years has been the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East. It has long been seen as the frontier between Western Civilization and the rest, but never definitively part of either. Despite being conquered by empires—Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hapsburg Spain—it remains uniquely apart. The island’s story maps a mosaic that mixes the story of myth and wars, maritime empires and reckless crusades, and a people who refuse to be ruled. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth but has been reinventing itself across centuries: in conquest and resistance. Inseparable from these political and social developments are the artefacts of the nation’s cultural patrimony—ancient amphitheaters, Arab gardens, Baroque Cathedrals, as well as great literature such as Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard, and the novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicenter of the refugee crisis.

Author : John Julius Norwich
Publisher : Random House
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2015-07-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812995190

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Sicily by John Julius Norwich Pdf

Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history. “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily’s strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world’s most powerful dynasties. Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich’s engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history—the Romans’ fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily—and tells the story of one of the world’s most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way. This volume has been a long time coming—Norwich began to explore Sicily’s colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world’s most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again. Praise for Sicily “Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, [Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.”—The Wall Street Journal “Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, ‘some dark, brooding quality,’ just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.”—The Sunday Times “Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.”—The Daily Beast “Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.”—Kirkus Reviews “A brisk and always-lively tour.”—Open Letters Monthly “Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. [His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.”—The Times “Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.”—The Sunday Telegraph “Norwich tells [Sicily’s] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.”—Literary Review

Author : Sandra Benjamin
Publisher : Steerforth
Page : 673 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2010-04-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781586421816

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Sicily by Sandra Benjamin Pdf

Take a tour through the Mediterranean’s largest island in this first and only history of Sicily for general readers—perfect for armchair travelers, historians, and anyone planning their next Italian vacation. The emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to its shores throughout the centuries. Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy—and countless others—have all held sway and left lasting influences on the island’s culture and architecture. Moreover, Sicily’s character has been shaped by what has passed it by. Events that affected Europe, namely the Crusades and Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, had little influence on Italy’s most famous island. The first and only history of Sicily for the general reader, this book examines how location turned this charming Mediterranean island into the epicenter of major historical conquests, cultures, and more. Complete with maps, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, a glossary, and pronunciation keys, Sicily is at once a useful travel guide and an informative, entertaining exploration of the island’s remarkable history.

Author : Edward Augustus Freeman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 664 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 1891
Category : Sicily (Italy)
ISBN : HARVARD:HXJUBX

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The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times by Edward Augustus Freeman Pdf

Author : Moses I. Finley,Denis Mack Smith
Publisher : Viking Adult
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1987
Category : History
ISBN : STANFORD:36105001677157

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A History of Sicily by Moses I. Finley,Denis Mack Smith Pdf

Author : Joseph Farrell
Publisher : Interlink Publishing
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2014-06-19
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781623710507

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Sicily by Joseph Farrell Pdf

“Reading these guides is the next best thing to actually going there with them in hand.” —Foreword Magazine AN ENGAGING INTRODUCTION TO A CULTURAL GIANT Long before it became an Italian offshore island, Sicily was the land in the center of the Mediterranean where the great civilizations of Europe and Northern Africa met. Sicily today is familiar and unfamiliar, modernized and unchanging. Visitors will find in an out-of-the-way town an Aragonese castle, will stumble across a Norman church by the side of a lesser travelled road, will see red Muslim-styles domes over a Christian shrine, will find a Baroque church of breathtaking beauty in a village, will catch a glimpse from the motorway of a solitary Greek temple on the horizon and will happen on a the celebrations of the patron saint of a run-down district of a city, and will stop and wonder. There is more to Sicily than the Godfather and the mafia.

Author : Peter Robb
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 484 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2014-08-05
Category : Travel
ISBN : 9781466861299

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Midnight In Sicily by Peter Robb Pdf

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

Author : Moses I. Finley
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 1968
Category : Sicily (Italy)
ISBN : LCCN:68031396

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A History of Sicily by Moses I. Finley Pdf

Author : John Dickie
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2015-03-31
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781466893054

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Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia by John Dickie Pdf

The Italian-American mafia has its roots in a mysterious and powerful criminal network in Sicily. While the mythology of the mafia has been widely celebrated in American culture, the true origins of its rituals, laws, and methods have never actually been revealed. John Dickie uses startling new research to expose the secrets of the Sicilian mafia, providing a fascinating account that is more violent, frightening, and darkly comic than anything conceived in popular movies and novels. How did the Sicilian mafia begin? How did it achieve its powerful grip in Italy and America? How does it operate today? From the mafia's origins in the 1860s to its current tense relationship with the Berlusconi government, Cosa Nostra takes us to the inner sanctum where few have dared to go before. This is an important work of history and a revelation for anyone who ever wondered what it means to be "made" in the mob.

Author : Leonard Chiarelli
Publisher : Midsea Books
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2018-05-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9993276456

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A History of Muslim Sicily by Leonard Chiarelli Pdf

The book, now in it's second revised edition, covers the period of Muslim Arab rule on the island from A.D. 827 to the Norman conquest in A.D. 1070. It is the first detailed study in English covering the various aspects of this 243-year period. It incorporates new Arabic sources and draws upon archaeological studies that hitherto have not been used. The book covers the political, social, economic, demographic, and cultural impacts that during this period forever changed the island's character. All aspects of society underwent change, making Sicily part of the Arabo-Muslim world for more than two hundred years. This new edition has now been updated with the latest research on the subject and with improved maps describing Sicily during the times of the Arabs.

Author : Francesco Aloisio,Jeremiah P Spence Ph D
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2019-06-14
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1072403374

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The History of Poggioreale, Sicily by Francesco Aloisio,Jeremiah P Spence Ph D Pdf

History of the village of Poggioreale in Sicily, Italy from 1640 to 1956.

Author : Robert Leighton
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 0801485851

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Sicily Before History by Robert Leighton Pdf

Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the most varied in appearance, and least insular in terms of cultural development. It has often been described as a meeting place of cultures, where East meets West.

Author : Giovanni Francesio,Enzo Russo
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Art
ISBN : UOM:39015059279946

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Sicily by Giovanni Francesio,Enzo Russo Pdf

Few places in the world have experienced such an intense and eventful history as Sicily. It has been rocked by revolts and power struggles and rejoiced in great splendor and freedoms. Over thousands of years this small island has been a crossroads for many peoples, religions and cultures. Its melting-pot of influences has created a unique spirit of 'Sicilian-ness'. Through the evocative photographs of Melo Minnella, Sicily Art, History and Culture captures the elusive spirit of Sicily, its inhabitants and its landscape. It offers a sweeping account of the island, from ancient history to the present day.

Author : Karla Mallette
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2011-06-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812204797

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The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250 by Karla Mallette Pdf

When Muslim invaders conquered Sicily in the ninth century, they took control of a weakened Greek state in cultural decadence. When, two centuries later, the Normans seized control of the island, they found a Muslim state just entering its cultural prime. Rather than replace the practices and idioms of the vanquished people with their own, the Normans in Sicily adopted and adapted the Greco-Arabic culture that had developed on the island. Yet less than a hundred years later, the cultural and linguistic mix had been reduced, a Romance tradition had come to dominate, and Sicilian poets composed the first body of love lyrics in an Italianate vernacular. Karla Mallette has written the first literary history of the Kingdom of Sicily in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Where other scholars have separated out the island's literature along linguistic grounds, Mallette surveys the literary production in Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Romance dialects, in addition to the architectural remains, numismatic inscriptions, and diplomatic records, to argue for a multilingual, multicultural, and coherent literary tradition. Drawing on postcolonial theory to consider institutional and intellectual power, the exchange of knowledge across cultural boundaries, and the containment and celebration of the other that accompanies cultural transition, the book includes an extensive selection of poems and documents translated from the Arabic, Latin, Old French, and Italian. The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100-1250 opens up new venues for understanding the complexity of a place and culture at the crossroads of East and West, Islam and Christianity, tradition and innovation.

Author : Christopher John Smith,John Serrati
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015053535020

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Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus by Christopher John Smith,John Serrati Pdf

This volume provides a chronological account of the island's history, interwoven with discussions of Sicilian identity, to show Sicily as a centre of affairs within the context of a fundamentally regional ancient world.