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Just to offer food for thought, some people in the south of Italy still regard him as a Sardo/French invader and do not buy the “national hero” persona that gar

Just to offer food for thought, some people in the south of Italy still regard him as a Sardo/French invader and do not buy the “national hero” persona that garibaldi got attributed after the unification.

toyg 11mo ago
The thing is: even ignoring that campaign, Garibaldi was successful elsewhere and mostly coherent in his political positions. So really, the nostalgics of Bourbon rule are just the Italian equivalent of American Confederates: they just never got over the fact they lost.
- Dansvidania 11mo ago
  I don’t share the nostalgia for burbonic rule, but I have to point out that the fact that they lost does not mean that they were not invaded. Both things can be true.
- mk89 11mo ago
  In some cases it has to do with nostalgy, for whatever reason. In most cases it has to do more with the fact that the South is primarily used as a way to steer/control the elections. Garibaldi used local (criminal) lords, the "picciotti", to achieve what he needed. A bit like today they would use local criminals to subjugate the population. Those criminals stayed until Mussolini decided to deal with them. And again they got freed by the Allies to save the country from Fascism. You could wipe out the mafia, make the land rich and use it, but there is not just enough interest to do so. On the contrary, the only interest is to use that land to move to the next step, never to actually use whatever is there. This is what makes people nostalgic or sad.
BurningFrog 11mo ago
The victors write the history, so people assume it was good that Italy got created. I'm far less sure. Italian governance is an eternal farce. Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal with each other.
- epolanski 11mo ago
  > Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal with each other. I'm Italian and this is absolutely false. While any political and historical event will have people saying that it wouldn't even better if X or Y stayed Z, the overwhelming majority of Italians want a united Italy. Federalist parties never took huge political weight (and the major one, Lega, won most votes when it dropped that narrative entirely) and separatist ones get irrelevant number of negligible votes.
  - BurningFrog 11mo ago
    I don't question that. Then again, if Italy still was 3-4 separate states, I don't think they'd be up for merging. People are pretty conservative with these things.
    - epolanski 11mo ago
      You could say the same about Germany where there's also huge regional differences (even bigger ones due to religion). It's very hard to imagine European and world history without a united Italy. Italian unification success was one (albeit not the primary one, which was the rivalry with Austria) major source of pressure on Prussian elites [1]. We look at history at very abstract level, but in 1861/62 Prussian newspapers were all into "look at how Cavour did in Italy, unlike that incompetent Bismarck". [1] https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/contested-visions-the-history-of-western-civilization-from-1648/section/21f81dd9-2e0f-4f78-a024-6e093cb534b7 https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/contested-visions-the-histo...
epolanski 11mo ago
Some southerners in US too would've wanted to split from the US and still fly confederate flags. That doesn't imply most want a split US.

toyg 11mo ago

The thing is: even ignoring that campaign, Garibaldi was successful elsewhere and mostly coherent in his political positions. So really, the nostalgics of Bourbon rule are just the Italian equivalent of American Confederates: they just never got over the fact they lost.

Dansvidania 11mo ago
I don’t share the nostalgia for burbonic rule, but I have to point out that the fact that they lost does not mean that they were not invaded. Both things can be true.
mk89 11mo ago
In some cases it has to do with nostalgy, for whatever reason. In most cases it has to do more with the fact that the South is primarily used as a way to steer/control the elections. Garibaldi used local (criminal) lords, the "picciotti", to achieve what he needed. A bit like today they would use local criminals to subjugate the population. Those criminals stayed until Mussolini decided to deal with them. And again they got freed by the Allies to save the country from Fascism. You could wipe out the mafia, make the land rich and use it, but there is not just enough interest to do so. On the contrary, the only interest is to use that land to move to the next step, never to actually use whatever is there. This is what makes people nostalgic or sad.

BurningFrog 11mo ago

The victors write the history, so people assume it was good that Italy got created. I'm far less sure. Italian governance is an eternal farce. Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal with each other.

epolanski 11mo ago
> Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal with each other. I'm Italian and this is absolutely false. While any political and historical event will have people saying that it wouldn't even better if X or Y stayed Z, the overwhelming majority of Italians want a united Italy. Federalist parties never took huge political weight (and the major one, Lega, won most votes when it dropped that narrative entirely) and separatist ones get irrelevant number of negligible votes.
- BurningFrog 11mo ago
  I don't question that. Then again, if Italy still was 3-4 separate states, I don't think they'd be up for merging. People are pretty conservative with these things.
  - epolanski 11mo ago
    You could say the same about Germany where there's also huge regional differences (even bigger ones due to religion). It's very hard to imagine European and world history without a united Italy. Italian unification success was one (albeit not the primary one, which was the rivalry with Austria) major source of pressure on Prussian elites [1]. We look at history at very abstract level, but in 1861/62 Prussian newspapers were all into "look at how Cavour did in Italy, unlike that incompetent Bismarck". [1] https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/contested-visions-the-history-of-western-civilization-from-1648/section/21f81dd9-2e0f-4f78-a024-6e093cb534b7 https://alg.manifoldapp.org/read/contested-visions-the-histo...

epolanski 11mo ago

Some southerners in US too would've wanted to split from the US and still fly confederate flags. That doesn't imply most want a split US.