Christopher F. Black is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Glasgow. He is author of Italian Confraternities in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1989).

'In preparing this book, Christopher Black has handled an impressive range of publications covering some three centuries of various aspects of Italian social history...students, scholars and teachers of the period will be grateful for a helpful introductory discussion of a wide range of topics, which the bibliography will prove very useful for developing.' - Peter Laven, English Historical Review, June 2002'This is a useful guide to recent developments in social history across Italy as a whole.' - History

• 1 Disunited Italy Unity and disunity; The chronology and developments of early modern Italy 2 Geography and demography 3 The changing rural and urban economies 4 The land and rural society 5 The urban environment 6 Urban society 7 The family and household 8 The social elites 9 Social groupings and loyalties 10 Parochial society 11 Social tensions, control and amelioration Social amelioration 12 Epilogue