BOOKS: David Gilmour’s the ‘Pursuit of Italy

Any visitor to Italy this summer, or autumn or winter for that matter should take with them David Gilmour’s the ‘Pursuit of Italy – A History of a Land: Its regions and Their Peoples’ – it fills a lot of gaps and puts the Risorgimento in perspective. 

Gilmour is never dull, his book is brilliantly researched and funny. He chastises Isaiah Berlin [for decades a venerable, unassailable icon if ever there was one] for being inaccurate.