Benjamin & Adam Ashwell
Talking History: The Italian UnificationEpisodes
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We've come to the end of the series - this will be the last episode of our story. I'd like to spend this episode addressing some of the big questions that the series raised: First, was unification inevitable? Second, was the incorporation of So
In this penultimate episode we'll cover the period from 1861 to 1871 and reach the end of our story. Italy started as a collection of small states, many of them ancient, and now the entire peninsula, minus a few outlying areas that Italy would
We're closing in on the end of the story of the Italian unification. Through both force of arms and cunning, Piedmont has conquered almost all of Italy - from the perspective of grand, heroic history, we've already passed the climax and we’re j
1860 was a bad year to be a cartographer - or maybe a good year, depending on how you look at it. In 1859 there had been seven states in Italy: the Kingdom of Piedmont, the Austrian-controlled Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, the Grand Duchy of Tus
Ever since the fall of the Roman Republic to the French army in 1849, we've focused pretty exclusively on events in Northern Italy, because that was there the action was. That is going to change. Distracted by the annexation of most of northern
In the space of a single year, Italy will change forever, emerging from the Second War of Italian Unification with an entirely new political landscape.
It's the beginning of 1859, and we're at a pivotal point in the story. While it would be an exaggeration to say that the entire Italian Unification hinges on the events of this episode, the timing of events here will play a role in everything t
A new election in Piedmont will threaten to unseat Cavour, who will only survive through cunning, ruthlessness, and good old fashioned cheating. An assassination attempt on French Emperor Napoleon III will either warm the cockles of his heart o
In this episode we're going to catch back up with both of our revolutionary friends Mazzini and Garibaldi. We'll start with Mazzini and the internal politics of the revolutionary movement post-1848, and then we'll get into a renewed round of r
The title of this episode, "The Eagle and the Bee", is a reference to the symbols of the House of Habsburg, the ruling house of Austria, and the House of Bonaparte, now the ruling house of France. The symbol of the House of Habsburg was a two-h
Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power is one of the events that puts the 1790 in our "1790 to 1870" tagline. For almost 20 years Napoleon was deeply involved in Italian affairs both big and small, and no history of the Unification would be complet
In this episode we'll continue the story of Piedmont's involvement in the Crimean war, and Cavour's role in the peace talks that followed. After that, we'll move on to the long awaited listener Q&A.
In this episode we're going to tell the first half of the story of Piedmont's involvement in the Crimean War, and Cavour's growing dominance of the Piedmontese political scene. We'll begin with a little housekeeping in Piedmont - some politics
We'll open this episode with a discussion of why Piedmont had no competition - what had happened to the rest of Italy that Piedmont, backwards, isolated Piedmont, was now their last, best hope for unification? Then we’ll return to Piedmont, whe
In this episode we'll meet Piedmont's new king, and see Piedmont try to regain its footing as it deals with its first constitutional crisis, triggered by its peace treaty with Austria. Against the backdrop of these events, Cavour, the late-bloo
We left off with Garibaldi leading his men out of the doomed city to continue the fight elsewhere. In this episode we'll follow our intrepid guerrilla leader's fight to the bitter end, and see the fall of the Republic of Venice, the last holdou
Adam is back with the final stages of the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe.
The poetic, heroic, and tragic defense was burned indelibly into the memory and imagination of Italian patriots, for whom the city of Rome would now forever be inextricably linked to the very idea of Italian nationalism. The story of the Roman
This episode will focus on two different areas. First, we're going to jump back to Piedmont. Frightened by the success of the republicans in Rome, and humiliated by their defeat by the Austrians in July of 1848, the Piedmontese made a desperate
The creation and heroic defense of a new Roman Republic is one of the defining episodes in the story of the Italian unification. It's an epic story, a blockbuster, and Garibaldi and Mazzini are the two main characters. We're not quite there yet
Revolutions break out in Italy in earnest when Milan rises up against Austria. The Piedmontese declare war on Austria, ostensibly in a war of national liberation, but in reality because they want to annex northern Italy. The pope severs his tie
In this episode we're going to cover the first three months of 1848 in Italy. Sicily will kick off the year with a revolution, followed by a smaller one on the mainland. Then, like a chain of dominoes, almost all of the rulers in Italy will be
An interview with Doug Cantelmo, Professor of Urban Development at St. John's University about urban development in late 19th century Italy.
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