Overview
Italy has long been thought of as a terra di mezzo, a land in between, a crossroads where life “above” exists together with life “below.” Italy’s underworld is taken as a given fact, and enjoys a global, if not romanticized, reputation. This volume is a first-of-its-kind study that explores how crime and illegality have served to make modern Italy and Italians. Its chapters set into relief “crime Italian style”: a distinct formation comprised of the porousness between licit and illicit and the malleability of illegality that has distinguished Italy as a nation-state since Unification. From courtrooms to television screens, and mafia dons to political activists, this volume delves into Italy’s criminal patrimony as well as the entanglements between Italian politics and organized crime, how ideas about crime and criminality cross borders and become attached to people, and how the representational force of the media continues to transform who or what is marked as criminal. This volume reconnects Italy to its heritage of crime and punishment to offer a new take on modern Italian identity that recognizes its relationship to illegality as a central, rather than peripheral, attribute.
Full Product Details
Author: Stephanie Malia Hom , Dana Renga
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Imprint: Liverpool University Press
Volume: 9
ISBN: 9781805966395
ISBN 10: 1805966391
Pages: 378
Publication Date: 13 March 2026
Audience:
General/trade
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General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print 
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION Introduction: Crime Italian Style Stephanie Malia Hom I: STATE, SOCIETY, & ILLEGALITY The Trattativa Stato-mafia: Transforming the State of Mafia Affairs Robin Pickering-Iazzi Tangentopoli: Justice, Spectacle, and the Making of a New Political Era Paolo Campolonghi Making Italians Aware of Italy: National Public Television and Organized Crime (1962–85) Alessandra Montalbano From “Cosa Nostra” to “Cosa Grigia”: How Criminal Systems in Italy are Changing after the Arrest of Fugitive Boss Matteo Messina Denaro!!!Giacomo Di Girolamo II: CRIMINAL BORDERS “To Weigh the Hand”: Cheaters, Scammers, and Italianness in São Paulo Giulia Riccò Transatlantic Punishment: The Extradition of Silvia Baraldini Ellen Nerenberg Terra dannata / dannati della terra: The Convergence of Farmworker, Food Justice, and Anti-Caporalato Movements Eleanor Paynter III: DELINQUENT SUBJECTS Graphologics: Handwriting, Character, and Social Danger David Horn A Laboratory of Male Citizenship: The Juvenile Reformatory of Tivoli, 1879–1914 Mary Gibson Fascist Woman, Delinquent Woman: The Case of Leonarda Cianciulli Stephanie Malia Hom IV: PICTURING CRIME (Transnational) Crime in Italian Silent Cinema Robert Rushing Not The Godfather: Two Investigative Films and Organized Crime David Forgacs “This Place Hasn’t Changed in 2000 Years”: Transnational Italian Crime Television Dana Renga EPILOGUE George Floyd, Soumaila Sacko, and Alika Ogorchukwu. Performative Anti-Racism and Black Lives in Italy Angelica Pesarini NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS INDEX
Reviews
'This book provides a stimulating and original addition to our knowledge of contemporary Italy and its representation in different media. Crime in relation to Italy's history is an association which resonates amongst readers, but which is also in need for a proper contextualisation beyond cliches and prejudices. This book does so and, as a collection of fourteen separate essays, allows the term to be interpreted and studied in a range of different cases.’ Guido Bonsaver, University of Oxford
Author Information
Stephanie Malia Hom is Professor of Transnational Italian Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dana Renga is Professor of Italian and Dean of Arts and Humanities at The Ohio State University.
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