Books : The Dark Heart of Italy

Rating: - A (sadly) true portrait
As an Italian who's been living abroad for some years (5) I find this book an very good and well written one. It is a clear description of the situation from the point of view of someone who just happens to live in this strange and beautiful country and is trying to understand it.....
I suggested it to some of my foreign friends, it is difficult to describe clearly the Italian political and social situation to somebody who does not know the country, and this book is a useful point to start.

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Rating: - Poor
The book is very superficial and poorly written. Italy is characterized as a right-wing dictatorship. Why does the author want to live in such an oppressive nation? Isn't he (and those like him) free to leave whenever he likes? Did anybody force Mr. Jones to come to Italy? If so, let us kno who that was.

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Rating: - What most Italians don't even know about their own country !
I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who wants to find out about the hidden and often unsettling side of Italy.
I have been living in Italy for 7 years now (I was in Parma, where Tobias lives, for 4 years), and quite frankly I can agree with a lot of what his observations and opinions are. The state secrets and the general political "dodgyness" here really are like what he describes.
A fair share of Italians themselves do not understand (or maybe do not care to understand) their post-war history, and when you ask anyone here they all have their own opinions on events depending on who they vote for.
It is a shame that some comments on this book written by Italians are obviously by the same people that Tobias Jones writes about : people who have been misinformed and have been swept along on the Berlusconi bandwagon.

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Rating: - The heart uncovered
I came to Italy a year after Tobias Jones and lived and worked in a large town in the Veneto for three years. Reading this book opened up a world that my work colleagues and friends were ashamed to reveal to me and helped me understand more intensely the sense of loss and disappointment that infuses public life. This book gets close to the core of the Italian riddle. When Italians live in such a great country, with great food, great countryside, great climate and such an outstanding legacy, why are they not fiercely proud to be Italian? Why do they put their own interests before the greater good? Why do they ignore the rules? Why do they have such seeming disregard for the state and for others outside their close circle of family and friends. This book gave me a new perspective on Italian life. It is the best country to live in in the world, but beneath the surface there is a complex and turbulent society that many outsiders never will never see.

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Rating: - Beautiful
This is a very important book. It describes, with wit and insight, one of the most misunderstood countries in Europe. Thousands of Brits go to Italy every year and understand nothing about the country. This book removes any excuse for ignorance. It's written with wit and style, a combination of first person impressions and in-depth analysis. The section in Italics is written by the author - it's just a device, I guess, to separate the journalistic from the academic. He discusses Italian football, language, cinema, everything. It's certainly opinionated and provocative, but he pulls it off beautifully. Above all, he's not scared to lay into one of the most sinister politicians of the world scene: Silvio Berlusconi. The analysis of how this man - owner of AC Milan, 3 television channels etc etc - came to be Italian PM is gripping. I would take exception to a couple of careless sentences about the country's Catholicism; occasionally Jones lets his passion get the better of him... but overall it's a stunning achievement.