Product Description
Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behaviorin different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basicmanners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you whatto expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This insideknowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feelconfident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successfulbusiness relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the cultureand society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whetheron business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include


*customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
*life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts,and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken


"Culture Smarthas come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfectintroduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of variouscountries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips tohelp you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining."Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New YorkTimes
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Customer Reviews (1)

Not that inciteful
Unless you know absolutely nothing about Italy this book isn't that helpful.It says at nauseum that the Italians are loyal to their friends and family.The assumption is that if you are from an English speaking country you aren't.It is also biased against southern Italy.It assumes that the people buying the book are only going to Milan, and are married men with kids.I think for the money you can buy another book that is more thorough.It only took me two hours to read this book, and for what I got out of it it wasn't worth it.This book was written by a British author, I recommend buying a book by an American author if you are American because the British and American cultures are not identical. ... Read more

Product Description

With over three million copies in print, CultureShock! is a bestselling series of culture and etiquette guides covering countless destinations around the world.For anyone at risk of culture shock, whether a tourist or a long-term resident, CultureShock! provides a sympathetic and fun-filled crash course on the do's and don'ts in foreign cultures.Fully updated and sporting a fresh new look, the revised editions of these books enlighten and inform through such topics as language, food and entertaining, social customs, festivals, relationships, and business tips. CultureShock! books are packed with useful details on transportation, taxes, finances, accommodation, health, food and drink, clothes, shopping, festivals, and much, much more.
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Customer Reviews (6)

Before you travel to Italy
This book is a "must read" before a trip to Italy. It really help one understand the culture and help you feel more at ease.

Excellent for what it is, a primer on Italian culture for the first time visitor
I found this book to be very useful during my first and second trips to Italy.This book is designed for those that are new to Italian travel.If you have been to Italy a few times before, this book will not add much to your knowledge of the people and the place.However, if you are embarking on your first trip to Italy this book does offer insight into the underlying ideas behind the Italian culture.

The section on body language and hand gestures is particularly useful to those that are new to Italy.Also the section on driving will be enlightening for those that have not gotten behind the wheel in Italy before.

The authors also discuss some of the interesting notions of when businesses open and close that American's find odd at first.Mealtime is also something that is very different from what we are accustomed to in America.Knowing ahead of time that meals are lengthy extended opportunities to socialize helped this American to not be frustrated during my first 3-hour meal.

Bottom line, if you will be making your first pleasure trip to Italy, this book does offer some insight into what is considered typical in the Italian culture.If you are looking for a book that will guide you in serious business travel, this is probably not the best place to start.

Shallow and lacking detail
I have read and used the other Culture Shock books and found them very useful.

This one though was almost a complete waste of time. It was full of cliches e.g. Italians love nothing more than spending time with their family and friends. It lacked detail and useful hints about how to interact with Italians.

Perhaps it suffered in comparison with "The Dark Heart of Italy" a far superior effort.

Culture Shock:Italy
I purchased this book to learn more about doing business in Italy, and I found there was not enough detail.I did learn how vastly different each region is in Italy - - and the author tries to show the differences in each region. Perhaps this is why I felt that it didn't do a deep dive into the regions I was most interested in.

I was very disappointed
After reading the "Culture Shock" books for Germany, Sweden, and France for trips,I was extremely disappointed with this book.It is basically a history book and gave me no real idea how to relate to Italians.Therefore, my experience in Italy was less than good.I highly recommend the France book---it is right on target and I had a great time navigating the culture. ... Read more

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The picturesque environments of Italy are explored from the towering Alps to Mediterranean islands and the sandy beaches of the Italian Riviera. Detailed photographs feature splendid cities, historic earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, unearthing Pompeii, and the renowned Italian automobile and fashion industries. ... Read more

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Speak the Culture: Italy offers a rich and engaging insight into the events, people and movements that have shaped Italy and the Italians. A guidebook can show you where to go, a phrase-book what to say, but only Speak the Culture: Italy will lead you to the nation’s soul.

The Italian character is complex, contradictory, alluring and infinitely variable: heirs to the greatest empire of the ancient world but almost ungovernable; cradle of western civilization as well as the Mafia; maestros of modern design, mired in old-fashioned bureaucracy; epicentre of the Catholic Church and exemplars of la dolce vita.

Where do you start? Giotto? Caravaggio? Murky Etruscan tombs or the mighty Roman Pantheon?

Speak the Culture: Italy sifts through a sprawling 3,000 year saga and makes sense of it, dissecting architecture, music, food, art, literature, cinema, family and much more.

Culture is covered in its broadest sense, extending into every aspect of Italian life—food and drink, religion, politics, sport, manners, character and so on. While the Italian peninsula has its ancient history, it’s been a unified nation for less than 150 years. Lo Stivale, or the famous Boot, is young: the nuances of strong, surviving regional identities are important and revealed.

Taken as a whole, Speak the Culture: Italygives you an insight into what it means to be Italian, but it’s also a book to dip into, to learn, for instance, about Giuseppe Verdi, Sophia Loren or Umberto Eco. Easily read and beautifully illustrated, this, the fourth in the Speak the Cultureseries, offers an intimate understanding of Italian life and culture for new residents, second home-owners, holidaymakers, business travelers, students and lovers of Italy everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An insightful read for anyone who wants a better grasp of Italian culture
There's more to Italy than a bunch of gods and Spaghetti. "Speak the Culture: Italy" is a crash course in Italian culture in Thorogood's Speak the Culture series, giving a deeper insight into the substance of the Italian people than simply their language. From their historical icons to their modern pop culture, "Speak the Culture" is an insightful read for anyone who wants a better grasp of Italian culture or who wants to visit the country without the big glowing neon tourist sign over their head.
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Recent work on the cultural history of modern Italy has radically challenged received opinion about the relationship of state and culture during the twentieth century. In this rich interdisciplinary book the complex interactions and negotiations of control arising from this state-culture connection are elucidated by way of case studies of major authors, filmmakers and artists and their encounters with censorship, patronage and other forms of direct state intervention; analytical surveys of different periods, media and culture industries; and through an examination of such key issues as Fascist censorship, the Resistance and its imprint in the collective memory, the introduction of television in the 1950s, and 1970's terrorism. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Different Kind of Guide to Visiting Italy
This is a quick read with down to earth suggestions on what cultural things you need to know when visiting Italy.

A good guide
I utilized this book with 2 others for my trip through Italy.
I didn't find a single book that was the best, but used many books to help guide myself through the country. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1500 few Europeans regarded nature as a subject worthy of inquiry. Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist rediscovery of nature, created vast collections as a means of knowing the world and used this knowledge to their greater glory.Drawing on extensive archives of visitors' books, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Paula Findlen reconstructs the lost social world of Renaissance and Baroque museums. She follows the new study of natural history as it moved out of the universities and into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific societies, religious orders, and princely courts. Findlen argues convincingly that natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and the development of new textual and experimental scholarship. Her vivid account reveals how the scientific revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old forms of knowledge and the new. ... Read more

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Practical guide to understanding Italian business culture. Offers a smooth and problem-free transition between the American and Italian business cultures. Paper. DLC: Business etiquette - Italy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very shallow view of Italian business culture
This book provides a glimpse of the Italian business culture that is hardly worth the price. I was better served by Passport Italy, where I got some context for the behavior and values of the culture. ... Read more

Product Description
Where did opera begin? Why are wine, women and song so important to the Italians? What is the connection between Italy and the fastest tractor in the world? This book answers these questions, and many more, in a concise and lively overview of Italy: the country, its languages, its people, their way of life and culture and what makes them tick. If you are studying for examinations which require a knowledge of the background of Italy and its civilisation, or if you are learning the language, in, for example, an evening class and want to know more about the country, this is the book for you. If your job involves travel and business relations, it will provide valuable and practical information about the ways and customs of the people you are working with. Or if you simply have an interest in Italy for whatever reason, it will broaden your knowledge about the country and its inhabitants. The book is divided into three sections. Chapters one and two deal with the forces - historical, geographical, geological, demographical and linguistic - that have brought about the formation of the country we know as Italy and the language we know as Italian.Chapters three to seven deal with the wealth of creative aspects of Italian culture from the beginnings to the present day. These chapters take a look at the main areas or works of literature, art and architecture, music, traditions and festivals, science and technology, fashion, and food and drink, together with the people who have created and are still creating them. Chapters eight to eleven deal with aspects of contemporary Italian society and the practicalities of living in present-day Italy: the way the political structure of the country is organized, education, the environment, the workplace and how people spend their leisure time. The final chapter looks at the country's relations with the wider world, and takes a glance at the future. Each chapter ends with a section entitled 'Taking it Further', where you will find useful addresses, websites, suggested places to visit and things to see and do. The new edition takes into account any developments in Italian culture and society, such as the introduction of the euro, which have occurred since first publication. ... Read more

Product Description

Producing Culture and Capital is a major theoretical contribution to the anthropological literature on capitalism, as well as a rich case study of kinship and gender relations in northern Italy.

Drawing on ethnographic and archival research on thirty-eight firms in northern Italy's silk industry, Sylvia Yanagisako illuminates the cultural processes through which sentiments, desires, and commitments motivate and shape capitalist family firms. She shows how flexible specialization is produced through the cultural dynamics of capital accumulation, management succession, firm expansion and diversification, and the reproduction and division of firms. In doing so, Yanagisako addresses two gaps in Marx's and Weber's theories of capitalism: the absence of an adequate cultural theory of capitalist motivation and the absence of attention to kinship and gender. By demonstrating that kinship and gender are crucial in structuring capitalist action, this study reveals these two gaps to be different facets of the same omission. A process-oriented approach to class formation and class subjectivity enables the author to incorporate the material and ideological struggles within families into an analysis of class-making and self-making.

Yanagisako concludes that both "provincial" and "global" capitalist orientations and strategies operate in an industry that has always been integrated into regional and international relations of production and distribution. Her approach to culture and capitalism as mutually constituted processes offers an alternative to both universal models of capitalism as a mode of production and essentialist models of distinctive "cultures of capitalism." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Marvellous ethnographic studyof Family Capitalism in Italy
Professor Yanagisako undertakes an ethnographic study of thirty-eight family firms in northern Italy's silk industry from an anthropological perspectivein order to go against the prevailing theories propounded by Weberian and Marxist scholars that capitalism can be self-perpetuating that requires no culturally motivated agents to reproduce or capitalism is the rational and calculated pursuit of profit and accumulation in which the effects of culture towards the diffusion of capitalism in the western world are not long-term and stronger.To her, culture and capitalism are not oxymoron and they can be mutually interdependent.

In this book, Professor Yanagisako undertakes a critical reconsideration of the concept of culture within the framework of anthropology as an analysis of family capitalism in Italy. She rejects the widespread notion that western capitalism is a homogenising and acultural force. She maintains that capital is accumulated, dispersed, and reproduced through historically specific cultural processes which are being formed through everyday practices of entrepreneurs. By studying sentiments, identities, kinship and gender of family firms in northern Italy's silk industry, she suggests that the application of cultural essentialist theory in the study of family capitalism in northern Italy cannot fully account for diverse everyday practices of family firms in the same geopolitical space. To her, we cannot view culture as a fixed and unchanging system and entrepreneurial practices within a specific national or regional space as homogeneous.

Professor Yanagisako interviews family firm founders and their family members and relatives. She also collects information from "Camera di Commercio" (Chamber of Commerce) in the provincial office that contains more detailed quantitative and qualitative data surrounding family firms. According to her findings, family firm founders are used to be depicted as "men of strong character" (P. 40),and "accentratori" (P.88) (making all the decision themselves), whereas there are sparse descriptions of founder's wives with such distinctive characters and personalities. The strength and character of the emotional bonds within the family become a productive force that enables family firms to survive and prosper. Amongst thirty-eight family firms, Professor Yanagisako finds that the practices of family firm founders in the upper, middle, and lower bourgeoisie factions vary even though they have similar sentiments, desires, and meanings of kinship and gender and therefore, they differ as regards capital accumulation, diversification, and reproduction. Chapter 5("Betrayal as a Force of Production" ) of the book is very interesting for its in-depth analysis of a recurring process of how betrayal and trust can lead to continuation and breakdown of solidarity of family firms.


This book should be read by readers who are interested in culture and family capitalism because it provides a new perspective towards the concept of culture and many particular insights and razor-sharp analyses of family capitalism. Resulting from rigorous integration of theories and empirical evidence made by Professor Yanagisako, this book is also strongly recommended as a good piece of scholar work for ethnographic researchers in the domains of family firms, entrepreneurship, and cultural studies.

Interesting book
Although I'm Italian and interested in the fashion/textile industry, I wasn't aware of the historical backgrounds of the most prestigeous Italian families who started textile businesses early in the Century. The author did an awesome job in gathering all the information the book contains. This book will help you get an idea of: where the major Italian textile firms are located around the lake Como; what are the families' styles and traditions beyond the businesses; and, ultimately, which are their characteristics. Simply intersting and amusing book. ... Read more

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Provides an overview of the past, present, and future of Italian American culture. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Francescp'sItaly is wonderfully written and pictured
The best documentary/history of Italy's regions.Very well written and informative while keeping your attention. Wonderful photography. A book to treasure.

So Romantic-The Way to Tour Italy
I just discovered this wonderful author & his TV program for BBC was incredible-makes me want to return to Italy today!

Frnacescos Italy
Is this on dvd and why don't you have it for sale. We saw it on the travel channel but would like the dvd. We enjoyed the program. ... Read more

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Italian Cityscapes examines the transformation of the Italian city from the 1950s to the present with particular attention to questions of identity, migration and changes in urban culture. It focuses on two phases of that transformation: the years of accelerated industrialisation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and the period of de-industrialisation and postmodernity beginning in the 1980s.The book shows how major demographic movements and cultural shifts threw into relief new conceptions of the city in which old boundaries had become problematic. Design, fine art, literature, youth culture, film and social history all provide focal points. The contributions bring specialist expertise to each area while the extensive illustrations give a vivid picture of the contemporary visual culture for which Italian cities are famed. ... Read more

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Fruits and vegetables as erotic metaphors in still life paintings, the Florentine Baptistry replicated in sausage and cheese by Andrea del Sarto, a recipe for fish molded in the shape of a goat, the discovery of an Ovidian scene at the bottom of a soup bowl. A feast for the mind and eye, this beautifully illustrated, compellingly readable book is a rich exploration of the little examined interplay between art and cuisine during the Italian Renaissance. Exploring a dazzling array of art works, and drawing from period recipes and menus, John Varriano considers the many, often surprising, ways that cooks and artists converged and drew from each other's worlds. Among other topics, he considers the significance of culinary images in Renaissance art; traces parallels in the use of ingredients such as eggs and oil in kitchens and in studios; examines centerpieces by artists that were made of food; looks at the emergence of the celebrity cook and celebrity painter; and much more. Woven throughout with the flavors and colors of the era, this book of Renaissance temptations expands our understanding of the traditional boundaries of creative expression. ... Read more

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Completely revised, this Culinaria presents itself in a fresh, modern layout that offers culinary pleasure all'italiana simply through browsing its pages and inspires its reader to try them out in the kitchen at home. ... Read more

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Concerned about sanitation during a severe bout of plague in Milan, Leonardo da Vinci designed an ideal, clean city. Leonardo was far from alone among his contemporaries in thinking about personal and public hygiene, as Douglas Biow shows in The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy. A concern for cleanliness, he argues, was everywhere in the Renaissance.

Anxieties about cleanliness were expressed in literature from humanist panegyrics to bawdy carnival songs, as well as in the visual arts. Biow surveys them all to explain why the topic so permeated Renaissance culture. At one level, cleanliness, he documents, was a matter of real concern in the Renaissance. At another, he finds, issues such as human dignity, self-respect, self-discipline, social distinction, and originality were rethought as a matter of artistic concern.

The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy moves from the clean to the unclean, from the lofty to the base. Biow first examines the socially elevated, who defined and distinguished themselves as clean, pure, and polite. He then turns to soap, an increasingly common commodity in this period, and the figure of the washerwoman. Finally he focuses on latrines, which were universally scorned yet functioned artistically as figures of baseness, creativity, and fun in the works of Dante and Boccaccio. Paralleling this social stratification is a hierarchy of literary and visual artifacts, from the discourse of high humanism to filthy curses and scatological songs. Deftly bringing together high and low-as well as literary and visual-cultures, this book provides a fresh perspective on the Italian Renaissance and its artistic legacy. ... Read more

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This is a book of essays on Italian culture that touch on opera, literature, international relations, cultural history, music and art. In this revised edition Father Navone added three new chapters. ... Read more

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"This book adds an entirely new dimension to the consideration of Humanism and Italian culture. It will make a welcome addition to the field of cultural studies by broadening the subject to consider an important source of information that has been previously overlooked." -- Timothy McGee

The Eloquent Body offers a history and analysis of court dancing during the Renaissance, within the context of Italian Humanism. Each chapter addresses different philosophical, social, or intellectual aspects of dance during the 15th century. Some topics include issues of economic class, education, and power; relating dance treatises to the ideals of Humanism and the meaning of the arts; ideas of the body as they relate to elegance, nobility, and ethics; the intellectual history of dance based on contemporaneous readings of Pythagoras and Plato; and a comparison of geometric dance structures to geometric order in Humanist architecture.

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As historians delve increasingly into the issues of political propaganda and visual art, Marla Stone provides a penetrating explanation of Italian Fascist arts patronage, one that explores the model of cultural consensus that set the Italian experience apart from that of Nazi Germany. In this book, Stone confronts some standard assumptions about the relationship between dictatorships and the arts. Even more so, she challenges conventional thinking on modernism and its political uses. In the case of Italy under Mussolini, authoritarian cultural politics were driven by a willingness to co-opt a spectrum of aesthetic movements, from modernist to neo-classical. Rather than legislate an "art of the state," the Fascist regime continually experimented with and revised its arts policy, as it pursued the support of artists and audiences. By exploring such events as the Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista of 1932 and the evolution of the Venice Biennale, Stone offers an unparalleled analysis of the extensive system of official art exhibitions, purchases, and commissions that injected official taste into cultural production.

At the same time, the author assesses the tensions implicit in state intervention in the arts--those between pluralism and propaganda, modernism and tradition, nationalism and regionalism--and the way in which a nondemocratic but modernizing and market-oriented polity handled them. Stone shows how official culture under Fascism mobilized modern and avant-garde aesthetics, emerging mass culture techniques, and a rhetoric of national culture to produce, during the 1930s, dynamic and vibrant cultural forms. Her inquiry into Fascist intervention in the art world is ultimately a cultural history of Fascist Italy, one with wide resonance and broad interest. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a benchmark
I read this book when it was brand new & continue to mentally reference it whenever I see banners announcing an exhibition, public event or institution. What we think of as progressive architecture,art & public space do not necessarily indicate liberal patronage. Perhaps knowing that Mussolini was once one of Italy's leading socialists explains the ecosystem nurturing the artistic concepts the Italian Fascists initially supported. ... Read more