AUR Professor Simon Martin is the author of Sport Italia, which tells the story of modern Italy, illustrating how and why sport is so strongly embedded in both politics and society, and how it is inseparable from the concept of Italian national identity. Narrating the history of modern Italy through its national passion for sport, Sport Italia provides a completely new portrayal of one of Europe’s most alluring, yet contradictory countries, tracing the highs and lows of Italy’s sporting history from its Liberal pioneers through Mussolini and the 1960 Rome Olympics to the Berlusconi era.
The Italian love affair with sport is passionate, voracious and all-consuming. It provides a backdrop and a narrative to almost every aspect of daily life in Italy where the distinctively pink-coloured newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is devoured by almost half a million readers every day. The book interweaves essential themes of Italian history, its politics, society and economy with a history of the passion for sport in the country.
Simon Martin’s research intimately relates to his teaching at the AUR, including his courses on History of Modern Italy and Modern European History. The core of this book is developed in his summer course on Calcio and Politics, Italian Sports and Society (to be offered again in 2012).
