Description
From Publishers Weekly This solid narrative of the Mediterranean island emphasizes how its location has subjected it to one wave of conquest after another. Benjamin ( The World of Benjamin Tudela ), who has lived in Sicily for the past decade, traces Sicilian history back to the indigenous Neolithic cultures, which dated from 7000 B.C. up through the first millennium B.C. The Greeks and the Carthaginians fought one another to exhaustion, leaving Sicily a prey to the Romans, who converted it into a rich granary of estates worked by (often rebellious) slaves. Muslims from Africa succeeded the Romans in the seventh century A.D., and they in turn gave way to Norman French, the best rulers the island ever had. From the famous rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282, Aragonese, Hapsburg and Bourbon Spaniards ruled, until Garibaldi used the island as a springboard for his unification of Italy in the 1860s. In this engaging read, Benjamin ably explains the temperament and culture of modern-day Sicilians, through the island's checkered political climate; its rugged and seismic terrain (the still-active Mt. Etna looms to the east); its poor soil and scant rainfall; as well as the mass emigration it endured in the 19th and 20th centuries. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Given its central location within the Mediterranean basin, the island of Sicily has found itself involved in just about all the major events that have shaped Europe, Africa, and Asia over three millennia. First came the Phoenicians, who had established their outpost at Carthage. They gave way to Greeks and their culture. Romans took the island as one of their first conquests on the road to hegemony. The crumbling Roman Empire left a void that first German tribes and then Arab settlers filled. Normans succeeded the Arabs and ushered in a golden age under the great king Roger. Other European colonial powers vied for dominance until Italy's eventual unification. The instability, friction, suspicion, and ethnic tumult caused by these successive waves of conquerors laid a foundation for the Mafia, whose rules of secrecy and assurances of protection worked to advantage in the island's rugged, inaccessible interior. Benjamin recounts all this history in easy prose unencumbered by academic pretension, making this an ideal history for the nonspecialist. Public libraries with significant Italian American populations will find this history in special demand. Mark Knoblauch Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A compact history of the Mediterranean's largest island, the most frequently conquered spot on earth. . . . The author does an especially good job of explaining how history never quite goes away in Sicily, how through the accretion of centuries, through so many varied influences, the island's unique culture has emerged. . . . A useful introduction to a portion of the world whose crowded history is not easily condensed." — Kirkus Reviews "Benjamin ... manages to deliver this fantastic island in all its kaleidoscopic variety. Although she takes us from pre-history to present day, the pace feels unhurried and the writing almost conversational. Divided into chapters devoted to each successive wave of invader, Sicily keeps our attention in the first place thanks to Sicily's layered history and colorful cast of heroes and scoundrels. and in the second to Benjamin's wonderfully terse, ironic tone and lively sense of the ridiculous." — Providence Journal Sandra Benjamin was born in Troy, New York, and moved to New York City when she was sixteen. After earning a doctorate in economics at the New School for Social Research, she began moving around Europe, learning a few of its languages. Along the way she acquired a love for southern Italy. Reflecting her interest in the area, ten years ago she published The World of Benjamin of Tudela: A Medieval Mediterranean Travelogue. Since then she has spent much of her time in Sicily. Always fascinated by the varied ethnic groups of New York City, she was similarly attracted by the diversity of peoples who became part of the fabric of Sicily. Read more
Features & Highlights
- The rich, recorded history of Sicily reaches back for more than three thousand years. Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Goths, Byzantines, Muslims, Normans, Hohenstaufens, Spaniards, Bourbons, the Savoy Kingdom of Italy and the modern era have all held sway, and left lasting influences on the island’s culture and architecture. And yet no contemporary book tells the story of Sicily in a single volume for the general reader. Tourists, armchair travelers, and historians will all delight in this fluid narrative that can be read straight through, dipped into over time, or used as a reference guide to each period in Sicily’s fascinating tale.It is a general history, an account of welfare and warfare. Emigration of people from Sicily often overshadows the importance of the people who immigrated to the island through the centuries. Immigrants have included several who became Sicily’s rulers, along with Jews, Ligurians, and Albanians. All are ancestors of modern Sicilians. Sicily’s character has also been determined by what passed it by: events that affected Europe generally, namely the Crusades and Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, had remarkably little influence on Italy’s most famous island. Maps, biographical notes, suggestions for further reading, a glossary, pronunciation keys, and much more make this book as essential as it is enjoyable.
