Converting a Nation ─ A Modern Inquisition and the Unification of Italy

In this revealing account of Catholic conversion in Unification Italy, Lang ably demonstrates the strength of Catholic political opinion in the shaping of national Italian identity during the Unification period. Lang's work examines a variety of newspapers, novels, and inquisition trials whose narratives unfolded in step with the formation of the nation-state. These narratives of conversion allowed the Church and its supporters to tell a story of national conquest and to advocate a society that upheld the legal, social, and religious tenets of Christianity. In a vehement rejection of modernization, these stories are indicative of the Vatican's quest to ensure that the future Italian state and its citizenry remained the promised land and chosen people of the Catholic Church - a quest that had serious ramifications for Italian and Vatican politics in the twentieth century.

ARIELLA LANG is Lecturer in Italian and Comparative Literature, Barnard College, USA.