Storia d'Italia. Annali 15: L'Industria [History of Italy. Volume 15: Industry]/L'Impresa italiana nel Novecento [Italian business in the twentieth century]

Storia d'Italia. Annali 15: L'Industria [History of Italy. Volume 15: Industry]. Edited by Franco Amatori, Duccio Bigazzi, Renato Giannetti, and Luciano Segreto. Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1999. xvii + 1332 pp. Bibliography, index. Paper, euro82.63. ISBN: 88-06-14345-X.

L'Impresa italiana nel Novecento [Italian business in the twentieth century]. Edited by Renato Giannetti and Michelangelo Vasta. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003. 488 pp. Paper, euro30.00. ISBN: 88-15-09496-2.

It might be considered self-serving to propose my own coedited volume as an example of a particularly relevant work in the field of Italian business history, but L'industria (volume 15 of the Einaudi History of Italy series, published annually) is a special case. It represents, in fact, the culmination of almost twenty years of research by ASSI (Associazione per la Storia e gli Studi sull'Impresa), which is a cross between a professional association and a cohesive intellectual "fraternity" that, since the early 19805, has decisively helped to establish business history in Italy as a scholarly field. In fact, the work was so much a product of collective effort that the publisher was asked to indicate ASSI as the book's editor. When this request was rejected, four senior members of the association who were heavily involved in the organization and coordination of the work agreed to lend their names.

At first glance, the title-Industry-suggests a perspective more suited to economists than to business historians, but, on perusal, it soon becomes apparent that the volume's perspective is that of business history. This is true not only for its considerations of the relationship between industry and the general sociopolitical national environment, but also for its treatments of issues related to specific factors of economic process (such as technology or energy), and even of topics like industrial policy and welfare.

The book is divided into three sections comprising nineteen chapters. The first part, "Industry and Economic Development," opens with Luciano Segreto's essay, "The History of Italy and a History of Industry." It also contains a quantitative description, authored by Albert Carreras, a much respected Spanish scholar who is familiar with Italian themes. In the second part, "Factors and Actors of Industrialization," business history...