Garibaldi

Citizen of the World: A Biography

Alfonso Scirocco, Allan Cameron

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780691115405
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400827862
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

What adventure novelist could have invented the life of Giuseppe Garibaldi? The revolutionary, soldier, politician, and greatest figure in the fight for Italian unification, Garibaldi (1807-1882) brought off almost as many dramatic exploits in the Americas as he did in Europe, becoming an international freedom fighter, earning the title of the "hero of two worlds," and making himself perhaps the most famous and beloved man of his century. Alfonso Scirocco's Garibaldi is the most up-to-date, authoritative, comprehensive, and convincing biography of Garibaldi yet written. In vivid narrative style and unprecedented detail, and drawing on many new sources that shed fresh light on important events, Scirocco tells the full story of Garibaldi's fascinating public and private life, separating its myth-like reality from the outright myths that have surrounded Garibaldi since his own day.

Scirocco tells how Garibaldi devoted his energies to the liberation of Italians and other oppressed peoples. Sentenced to death for his role in an abortive Genoese insurrection in 1834, Garibaldi fled to South America, where he joined two successive fights for independence--Rio Grande do Sul's against Brazil and Uruguay's against Argentina. He returned to Italy in 1848 to again fight for Italian independence, leading seven more campaigns, including the spectacular capture of Sicily. During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln even offered to make him a general in the Union army.

Presenting Garibaldi as a complex and even contradictory figure, Scirocco shows us the pacifist who spent much of his life fighting; the nationalist who advocated European unification; the republican who served a king; and the man who, although compared by contemporaries to Aeneas and Odysseus, refused honors and wealth and spent his last years as a farmer.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Sailing the Mediterranean
• Chapter 2: From Conspiracy to Exile
• Chapter 3: The Rio Interlude
• Chapter 4: Privateer
• Chapter 5: In Rio Grande
• Chapter 6: Loves, Friendships, and Amusements
• Chapter 7: The Costa Brava Expedition
• Chapter 8: Montevideo
• Chapter 9: San Antonio de Salto
• Chapter 10: His Fame Spreads
• Chapter 11: Italy in 1848: The General Call to Arms
• Chapter 12: The Rome Events of 1849
• Chapter 13: The Bold Defiance of 1849
• Chapter 14: The Gray Years
• Chapter 15: In the King’s Service
• Chapter 16: Political Frustrations and Disappointments in Love
• Chapter 17: The Epic Campaign of the Thousand
• Chapter 18: The Dictator of Sicily
• Chapter 19: Master of a Kingdom
• Chapter 20: From the Solitude of Caprera to the Drama of Aspromonte
• Chapter 21: Triumph in London
• Chapter 22: Bezzecca, Mentana, and Dijon
• Chapter 23: Pacifism, Socialism, and Democracy
• Chapter 24: The Final Years: Family, Literary Activities, and Financial Concerns
• Chapter 25: Epilogue
• Chronology of Events
• Bibliography
• Index