Abolitionism and the Persistence of Slavery in Italian States, 1750-1850

1. Historiographical Perspectives.- 2. The Reverberations of the Abolitionist Debate in the Italian States.- 3. Forms of Slavery in the Pre-Unitarian Italian States (1750-1850).- 4. The Memory of Slavery.

Giulia Bonazza is a fellow at the German Historical Institute in Rome, Italy, and former Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.

"The book is empirically ground-breaking, and reveals themes that have not attracted sufficient attention in a field dominated by excessive focus on the Atlantic world. ... This is extremely interesting from a comparative perspective, as it expands our understanding of the relation between imperialism and abolitionism. ... The book also unearths for its readers a secondary literature accessible only in Italian, and therefore scarcely integrated in international debates. For all these reasons, Bonazza is to be highly commended." (Journal of Global Slavery, Vol. 5 (3), October, 2020)

"Giulia Bonazza's book on abolitionism in pre-unification Italy is, from many points of view, an innovative Study. ... Bonazza's study continues, from the point of view of the chronological period analyzed ... . Her book offers ...  a broader and more general reflection on that "grey area" between the Napoleonic campaign in Italy and national unification ... ." (Valeria Deplano, H-Net Reviews, h-net.org, March, 2023)

"This work constitutes a major contribution to global slavery studies, primarily because it sheds light on an understudied topic in the English language historiography: slavery and abolitionism in pre-unification Italy. The book is empirically ground-breaking, and reveals themes that have not attracted sufficient attention in a field dominated by excessive focus on the Atlantic world. ... For all these reasons, Bonazza is to be highly commended." (Journal of Global Slavery, Vol. 5 (3), October, 2020)