Book excerpt: Italy has been imagined and re-imagined by Western civilization from the latter part of the Renaissance to the present day. The Italian in Modernity provides a comprehensive overview of this conceptualization, in a volume that promises to become the leading introduction to current research in the field. In this study, Robert Casillo and John Paul Russo look at both Italy and Italian America to explore the paradoxical representation of Italy as the originator of modernity that has resisted many modern tendencies. Covering topics that include travel writing, gender, modernization and Italian decline, national character and stereotypes, immigration, and film, Casillo and Russo discuss writers and artists as diverse as Stendhal, Stäel, Burckhardt, Puccini, D'Annunzio, Santayana, Hemingway, and Coppola. Masterfully linking multidisciplinary sources along a broad historical continuum, The Italian in Modernity is essential to anyone interested in Italian culture and the links between Italy and the United States.