Michael Morrogh provides an easy-to-follow introduction to the unification of Italy - the Risorgimento - using a broad range of contemporary documents to guide the student through the topic. A brief general introduction puts the whole subject into context, while each of the chapters contains a helpful commentary section, and questions to encourage the student to think in depth and to approach the documentary evidence from different perspectives.

A wide variety of source material is used - not only letters and speeches, but diaries, unreliable memoirs, cartoons from Punch, and literary extracts. This new edition also contains valuable contemporary documents by a female American journalist.