Getting the Boot - Hardcover

Frei, Matt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0812923871 ISBN 13: 9780812923872

Publisher: Crown, 1995

Synopsis

The Southern Europe correspondent for the BBC describes Italy's 1980s dependence on graft and how the arrest of politicians and businessmen caused the system to collapse in 1992

About this title

Review:

Books on the Mafia fill a small library. Frei's book, however, stands alone: it chronicles the historical relationship of the Mafia to the Italian state, a relationship that lately has ended in the collapse of governments and mass arrests as the Italian people decide that enough is enough. As a study in modern history, Frei's book has many virtues. As a work of political journalism, it is lively and strangely entertaining, especially when Frei draws parallels between Italian politics and the workings of other nations. (Few would dare comparing the disgraced former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to H. Ross Perot.) Frei, the Southern Europe correspondent for the BBC, is no talking head; he finds himself easily at home among ideas and people. Although his book suffers a little from repetition, it is nonetheless probing and thoughtful.

From Publishers Weekly:

In a revelatory report which unfolds like an opera buffa, BBC correspondent Frei unravels the 1993 corruption scandal which toppled the political elite that had ruled Italy for nearly five decades. He carries the story forward to the second wave of scandals erupting in late 1994, by which time one-third of parliament had come under criminal investigation amid charges of extortion, kickbacks and bribes by private companies seeking public-works contracts. Toppled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the media and real-estate mogul whose regime lasted just eight months, emerges as "Italy's Ross Perot," a monopolist who hijacked a populist revolution with promises of salvation and sweeping reform. Frei, based in Rome since 1992, provides a marvelously unbuttoned look at Italian politics, culture and society. He discusses the separatist movement in northern Italy, the resurgence of neo-fascist terrorist groups, the crackdown on the Mafia, and the Italian family, "a tightly knit, sometimes paranoid social unit." Portraying Italians as a deeply conservative people, Frei urges fundamental constitutional reform to create a benevolent federalist government that would take into account the country's regional differences.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0812923871
• ISBN 13: 9780812923872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 273