Midnight in Sicily: on Art, Food, History, Travel and La Cosa Nostra

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Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2021-10-16 13:05:32 Boxid IA40264005 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier There is a book by Australian writer Peter Robb which has contributed to my ongoing fascination with Palermo. After reading Midnight in Sicily , I imagined wandering through Palermo’s streets, exploring Norman palaces, experiencing the exotic food markets and discovering little hidden restaurants which cooked an endless array of seafood. The case of Giulio Andreotti is an example well explained by the author, with overwhelming and detailed evidence.

The top 10 books about Italy | History books | The Guardian The top 10 books about Italy | History books | The Guardian

I’m not entirely sure that the book’s byline (On Art, Food, History, Travel and the Cosa Nostra) really fit, as the parts that weren’t about the Cosa Nostra mostly took on the form of brief tangents or reporting of what Robb ate when he met such and such a person, and didn’t really bring anything particularly illuminating to the subject. The book may have even been more successful at getting across the huge amount of information delivered on the Cosa Nostra had these little distractions not been included. There's a fair bit on art and culture in the book. As someone whose cultural hinterland stops at a couple of Edward Hopper prints slung up on the lounge wall these can be tiresome - but they can also be skipped through. Overlapping words: Peter Robb's Midnight in Sicily and Leonardo Sciascia's Detective Stories in Italics". Swinburne Research Bank . Retrieved 6 May 2015. This book is a pretty comprehensive account of the development, changing nature and widespread influence of the main groups of organized criminality in Italy (Mafia with origins in Sicily, and Camorra in Naples) after WWII. Much of the history is taken from firsthand accounts and documentation, some of it used in famous Mafia trials.A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity. Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Old_pallet IA18206 Openlibrary_edition I had thought of leaving this out on the grounds that it tells us more about Goethe than Italy. But it is one of the first accounts – and the most beautiful – of how the chaotic, impulsive, sensual south seduces we ratiocinating northerners, making Goethe, the creative outsider, “feel at home in the world, neither a stranger nor an exile”.

Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb - Publishers Weekly Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb - Publishers Weekly

Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.Fortunately, there is still an important part of civil society that refuses to give up. The hope is that it will finally prevail and transform Italy into a truly European and independent country.

Midnight in Sicily - Peter Robb - Google Books Midnight in Sicily - Peter Robb - Google Books

This book was a huge disappointment to me. Maybe if i was reading my hundredth book about Sicily i would know the significance of all the stories and events the author alludes to, but as an introduction and overview of Sicily it was a failure. I'm really not sure what the author wanted to focus on with this book. Food? History? Culture? Whatever it was it all came across as a conversation with the worst sort of person you meet traveling, someone totally fatigued by travel, someone too long on a trip that they have lost sight of what was special to begin with and worst of all, they know far better than you what you should see and why its important to see it but they won't tell you anything more about the place beyond stating that they were there long ago, when it was better and more genuine. Peter Robb presents a labyrinthine tale that brilliantly juxtaposes essays on food and art with historical accounts.” — Sandra Mardenfeld, The New York Times Book Review I also like how the author did not refrain from highlighting the heavy responsibilities of the US authorities in WWII, when they supported the re-establishment of the Mafia structure in Sicily, in exchange for support in their occupation of the island - the famous Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini ("the boss of all bosses") was even made Honorary Colonel in the US Army. It is eternally deceptive; a country in which much is said by means of symbols, or simply left unsaid. So, with the possible exception of the last, the books that follow are ones that scratch at the reassuring surface of Italian life to get at the infinitely more fascinating reality below. None more purposefully than … Spending fourteen years in southern Italy, Peter Robb recounts his journey into the Italian mezzogiorno - chiefly Sicily, but also Naples, and reveals its culture, history, art, literature and politics. The book also explores the dysfunction and impunity that intertwined with the organised crime world or Mafia world of the area from the post World War II era up to the 1990s, and the role of seven-time prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

I enjoy travelling by train, it is comfortable, reasonably inexpensive and easy to do, especially in Italy. It’s a good idea to travel in Sicily by train as you can see a fair amount of the countryside as the line takes a coastal route, but for a few moments in the odd tunnel, you get primarily uninterrupted views. It’s a little slow, but today I’m not in a hurry, so I’m happy to look out the window and soak up the sunshine. A fascinating insight into Sicily and the Cosa Nostra, particularly the political influence of Andreotti. The extreme violence of the 1970's and 80s reads like fiction. I am trying to get a trip to Sicily organized for April. I thought this would help set the scene, though I am more interested in the volcanoes and food than the mafia. Anyone read it? Only partly about Sicily; more an exploration of the corrupt dynamics of Christian Democracy enlivened by digressions into the art, literature and gastronomy of the Mezzogiorno. Ideally read in conjunction with Paul Ginsborg’s masterly History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988.