Editori Laterza

Spring 2017

Rights List

ANDREA MARCOLONGO

The Brilliant Language9 Reasons to Love Ancient Greek

Andrea Marcolongo studied Ancient Greek at the University of Milan. She has travelled extensively and lived in tendifferent cities, including Paris, Dakar, and Sarajevo, and currently lives in Livorno. After specialising in storytelling,she worked as a communication consultant for politicians and businesses, including as ghost-writer for former ItalianPM Matteo Renzi. Understanding Ancient Greek has always been an unresolved question for her and she has dedica-ted many sleepless nights to answering it. This is her first book.

80.000 copies sold 80.000 copies sold Six months in the chartsSix months in the charts

An editorial caseAn editorial case

172 pagesPublished

Every language captures the world in a unique way: the stranger the vision,the more interesting the language. This is the idea behind Andrea Marco-longo’s captivating book on the mysteries of ancient Greek. Far from being a grammar primer, Andrea Marcolongo’s book is a love storywith a language and its ability to alter the senses. Ancient Greek, whetheryou are familiar with it or not, is a wine you have never tasted before, aunique vintage not unlike the one Ulysses used to outwit the Cyclops: eachsip will leave you craving more. Because ancient Greek provides a key to seeing the world, a vision that remains just as brilliant today: “It is to theGreeks that we turn when we are sick of the vagueness, of the confusion,of our own age” (Virginia Wolf)

sold to: Patakis (Greek)

Piper Verlag (German)Taurus (Spanish)

Les Belles Lettres (French)Wereldbibliotheek (Dutch)

This book will convince you that ancient Greek is as alive and important as ever: its power lies in the ability to express complex issues through simple, true and honest words

We all know the feeling: faced with an Ancient Greek text, our first reac-tion ranges from paralysis to pure terror. Nine reasons to love the language and to capture Ancient Greek’s abilityto speak to us in a unique, special way, different from all other languages– and to sweep away the fear and replace it with passion.

A charming book, with smartthoughts and an elegant writing

Andrea Marcolongo seduces us by taking nine linguistic idiosyncrasies and turning them into existential enquiries

Alessandro D’Avenia

The Brilliant Language is a smart and unexpected book that catches its readers between the worrying awareness of having missed an opportunity

and the euphoric feeling of having a second chance

Gianrico Carofiglio

Translating Ancient Greek means drawing closer to an extraordinary reality, an oasis oftruth: this is the strenght of The Brilliant Language by Andrea Marcolongo

Matteo Nucci

“This book is above all about love:Ancient Greek is the longest and most beauti-ful relationship of my life. It does not matterif you know Greek or not. If you do, I will regale you with details that you werenever taught at school, when you were drow-ning in declensions and paradigms. If you are just beginning to studyit, even better! Your curiosity is ablank page for me to fill. This language holds something for everyone - allowingyou to express words or conceptsthat crop up every day, but whichyou simply cannot say in your language. For instance, thereare three gramma-tical numbers fornouns: singular,plural, and dual –a pair of eyes, twolovers; it uses averb tense to ex-press desire, theoptative, and ithas no future. There will be notests or finalexams: if by theend of the book I will have managed to en-gage you and answer questions you neverthought of asking, if you finally understandthe reason for so many hours of study, I willhave achieved my goal.”

A FEW REASONS TO LOVE ANCIENT GREEK

- It is a peculiar language, which classifies verbs based on the nature of theaction rather than their tense

- In addition to singular and plural, it has a third grammatical number, thedual, used to indicate a couple (lovers, for instance)

- We don’t know how words were pronounced, so it is a mutelanguage

- As a language, it is extremely concise and clear

- It has a specific mood, the optative, to express desire

- It classifies colours based on their luminosity rather thantheir hue

- It acts as a gateway to a lost world

ANGELO D’ORSI

1917The year of revolution

Angelo D’Orsi is professor of History of Political Thought at the University of Turin. He is director of journals “HistoriaMagistra. Rivista di storia critica” and “Gramsciana. Rivista internazionale di studi su Antonio Gramsci”. Among his pu-blications: Culture in Turin in between the Two Wars (Einaudi, 2000); Twentieth Century Italian Intellectuals (Einaudi,2001); Scholars at War. The Seduction of War on Intellectuals from Adua to Baghdad (Bollati Boringhieri, 2005); Guer-nica 1937. Bombs, Barbarism, Lies (Donzelli, 2007); 1989. On how History has Changed for the Worse (Ponte alle Gra-zie, 2009); The Italy of Ideas. Political Thought in One and a Half Centuries of History (Bruno Mondadori, 2011).

278 pagesPublished

1917: in March, a ‘democratic’ revolution forces Tsar Nicholas II toabdicate. In April, the USA make their entry into the World War. InMay, three shepherds see a ‘Lady’ dressed in white in Fátima, Portu-gal; in July, Yugoslavia is born and, in August, Benedict XV speaks outagainst the ‘useless massacre’ that is shedding blood across Europeand the whole world. In September, different cities rise against theWar; in October, Margaretha Zelle – the dancer known as Mata Hari –is shot in Paris and only a few days later, Italian troops are defeatedat Caporetto. In November, as the Bolsheviks take the Winter Palace,the Balfour Declaration lays the foundations for the creation of theState of Israel and for a new organisation of the Middle East. In De-cember, in Italy, almost two hundred nationalist deputies organisethemselves into the Fascio Parlamentare di Difesa Nazionale, a pre-cursor to Mussolini’s Fascism…

The story of the year that changed the course of history ofthe 20th century

From Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication to the Balfour Declaration.A new way of telling history: the world in a year, month bymonth

Twelve events, twelve chapters,twelve months: in his account of this

turbulent year, the author suggestslinks between different events aswell as drawing parallels with the

present day, since someway we arestill living with the unresolved

legacy of that time

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except Brazil)

LUCIANO CANFORA

Cleophon must die

The Peloponnesian war is in full swing, and Athens is on the vergeof defeat at the hands of Sparta. Tensions are running high: thearistocratic party wants to surrender and embrace the constitu-tion of the victors. But the Democrats are determined to resist theinvader and defend Pericles’ constitution to the bitter end. Cleo-phon is the leader of the democratic faction and the man to beat. Playwrights are extremely influential in this stormy political set-ting: they have close ties with pressure groups bent on bringingdown the democratic regime. Comedy passes itself off as a mou-thpiece for the ‘silent majority’ of those who do not attend popu-lar assemblies, inciting them to rise up against their leaders,whom it depicts as heinous demagogues. Aristophanes, the comicwriter, is a real political agitator. He is extremely skilled in presen-ting himself as the protector of the people, while actually actingof behalf of those who wish to undermine popular power. The most revealing episode appears in The Frogs, in which Aristo-phanes casts aside his poetic mask and dispenses with all theatri-cal illusion in a mock political rally where he calls for Cleophon – apassionate opponent of the oligarchy – to be sentenced.

Luciano Canfora is Emeritus Professor at Bari University. He edits the Quaderni di Storia series and writes for daily newspaper Il Cor-riere della Sera. His works published by Laterza, which have been widely translated all around the world, include: Julius Caesar. TheDemocratic Dictator; Critique of Democratic Rhetoric; Democracy. History of an Ideology; The Eye of Zeus. The Misadventure of De-mocracy; The First March on Rome; The Nature of Power; The World of Athens; The Crisis of Utopia. Aristophanes vs Plato; AugustusSon of God; Thucydides. Lies, misdemeanours, punishment.

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The past few years have been dominated by talk of demagogues and their ability to affect democratic life. Luciano Canfora tells the story of the grisly trial in which Aristophanes brought about the sentencing of the last leader of the Athenian democracy: Cleophon.

512 pagesPublication in May

The World of Athens526 pages

sold to:Anagrama (Spanish)

Companhia das Letras(Portuguese in Brazil)

Giulio CesareThe Democratic Dictator

522 pages

sold to:Flammarion (French)

Liberdade (Portuguese in Brazil)Ariel (Spanish)

Editura All (Romanian)

sold to:Companhia das Letras (Portuguese in Brazil)

Yoldaerim (Korean) Albin Michel (French)

Ekdoseis tou Eikostou Protou(Greek)

Bungei Shunju (Japanese)Alianza (Spanish)

Athena (Chinese Complex)Znak (Polish)

Columbia University Press(English)

Niin & Nain (Finnish)

ROBERTO CASATI ACHILLE C. VARZI

Simply Diabolical100 new philosophical stories

Following the global success of Insurmountable Simplicity.39 philosophical tales, which was translated into 9 langua-ges, Casati and Varzi are back to challenge us with more oftheir stories

Philosophy is a ceaseless effort to recognise the extraordinarycomplexity of the world we live in, even seemingly simplethings

100 trenchant philosophical tales designed to surprise us andput our intelligence to the test

232 pagesPublished

Roberto Casati is Research Director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), Institut Nicod del-l’École Normale Supérieure in Paris. His publications with Laterza include: The Wasserman Case and Other Metaphisi-cal Accidents (2006); The Discovery of Shadow (2008); Against Digital Colonialism (2013).

Achille C. Varzi is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University. His publications with Laterza include: Onthology(2005); Metaphisics. Contemporary Classics (2008); The World in Focus (2010); Tribulations of Philosophy - with Clau-dio Calosi (2014).

Today, we have every reason to wonder at scientific progress,sweeping social change, the power of information and communi-cation in breaching knowledge barriers. Yet for all these greatchanges, everyday life still gives rise to niggling doubts. What’sthe difference between the left hand and the right? Will thereever be another moment like this one? Why can we pray whilesmoking if we can’t smoke while praying? A mosaic is defined bythe position of its tiles; but if we were to swap two identical tilesaround, would it still be the same mosaic? In this book, Him, Her,the indefatigable Busybody and other characters get to grips withthese and other questions, casting a curious look at things thatseem simple but are not.

Previous titles Insurmountable Simplicities

39 philosophical tales198 pages

ALBERTO MARIO BANTI

Eros and VirtueAristocratic and Bourgeois Womenfrom Watteau to Manet

Manet’s paintings are completelyelusive. In Le Balcon, two women

and a man are painted looking outof an open French window. In Le

Déjeneur sur l’herbe, a nudewoman and two fully clothed menare sitting on a lawn having a con-

versation. In Olympia, a young girl,also nude, stares at the viewer with

a sad and arrogant expression.Who are these people? What arethey doing? In which ‘history’ do

they find themselves?

Manet, Sargent, Millais, Velázquez: placed in their historical context, theirpaintings offer valuable insights that help us understand the depth ofbourgeois morality. The clothes or nudity of the people portrayed, theirattitude, their posture, tell us a lot about the mentality of the time. But inorder to fully appreciate the shift that radically transforms the world ofthe Western elites, we need to look back to the eighteenth century. It isat this time that avant-garde intellectuals and artists harshly attack theethical world view of the courts and aristocracy – and it is with their criti-cism that a new map of desires, affectations and passions begins to bedrawn, which will come to dominate nineteenth-century bourgeois so-ciety. Before we look at Le Balcon, then, we need to penetrate anotherethical, cultural and visual reality. As a matter of fact, we need to enterthe shop of art dealer Edme-François Gersaint, exactly the way AntoineWatteau imagines it between 1720 and 1721 in L’Enseigne de Gersaint.The paintings hanging on his shop walls immediately draw our attentionto key aspects of Ancien Régime culture that tell us about a specific wayof conceiving of love, emotions and intellectual sociability. Between theend of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, thatworld collapses. In its place, a new system of values emerges which re-shapes gender relations, emotional investments and sexual desires. Noteveryone is comfortable in that new ethical-visual scenario. Manet’sworks, together with the many others considered in this book, bear wit-ness to this transformation.

Alberto Mario Banti teaches Contemporary History at the University of Pisa. His most recent publications include TheNation of Risorgimento (Turin 2000) and The Honour of the Nation (Torino 2005). With Laterza he has published: TheItalian Risorgimento (2004); The Contemporary Age. From the Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century to Imperialism(2009); The Contemporary Age. From the Great War to Today (2009); The Issues of the Contemporary Age (2010); Inthe Name of Italy. Risorgimento in Testimonies, Documents and Images (2010); The Italian Nation from Risorgimentoto Fascism (2011); A Cultural Atlas of Risorgimento (edited by, with A. Chiavistelli, L. Mannori and M. Meriggi, 2011).

Along with the author, who guides us in an art gallery throughthe eyes of the historian, we look at such famous paintings asfor the first time, finding out the ways in which the social andcultural elites conceived gender relations, love, and sexuality

170 pageswith Illustrations/Published

sold to: Alma Editeur (French)

CHIARA MERCURI

Francis of Assisi The Denied Story

Paris, 1266. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, a General of the Franci-scan Order, issues the order that all biographies of Saint Francis,who passed away forty years earlier, be destroyed. Old biogra-phies are substituted with the new one, Life of St Francis of Assisi,edited by Bonaventure himself. From this moment on, Franciscomes to be known forever as an ingenuous, uneducated friar, agentle mystic, a visionary obeying the divine will and lacking in ini-tiative, a man who preferred to speak with animals rather thanwith his own peers. Only several centuries later, in 1880, did aprotestant pastor begin a search for new documents and findsome unknown texts written by Francis’ companions. Now, on the basis of those sources – still not recognised as officialand largely unknown to the wider public – Chiara Mercuri recon-structs the life and teachings of a different Francis. The new por-trait that emerges is that of an assertive and passionate man, whoknew how to be intransigent and was scared of solitude. This wasa man for whom the experience of poverty and the desire to com-pletely renounce private property and material goods was a lifemission. But above all, these pages tell a plural story of frien-dships, life in the community, life companions. Leo, Clare, and theothers that followed him are the co-protagonists of an extraordi-nary journey of spiritual renewal. This is a passionate book thatdoes justice to an extraordinary man.

Chiara Mercuri specialised in Medieval History in France. She is the author of several scientific studies, including a book on the relic ofthe thorn crown (Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura), translated into French with the title Saint Louis et la couronne d’épines [Saint Louisand the Crown of Thorns] (Riveneuve 2011), which was awarded the prestigious Prize of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Let-tres. She currently writes for the journal ‘Medioevo’. With Laterza, she has published The True Cross. History and Legend from Golgo-tha to Rome (2014).

Who was Francis of Assis while he hadn’t yet the halo?

The life of Saint Francis of Assisi re-emerges out of the darkdepths into which history had pushed it. This is a plural story, based on unofficial and largely unknownsources, in which the real role of the Saint’s community andcompanions appears.

228 pagesPublished

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The True Cross History and Legend from

Golgotha to Rome192 pages

sold to: Edhasa (Spanish Worldwide)

ALESSANDRO BARBERO

The Pope’s WordsFrom Gregory VII to Francis

The language of the Church of Rome’s pastor has alwaysbeen an expression not just of the pontiff’s individual per-sonality, but also of the place in the world that the word ofthe Church has occupied in a given epoch

The Church’s history can also be tracked in the words Popes use toaddress the world. Barbero examines the history of an institutionthat contrary to appearances has never remained static but hasinstead known profound changes over the course of centuries.Language is the best witness of that often difficult evolution: thechanges of register and tone, at times imperious at times melli-fluous, the use of new, previously unthinkable, words – when dida Pope first utter the word proletariat – are the unequivocal gaugeof the place occupied by the Church in the world. Analysing fifteen encyclicals from the year 1000 to today, thebook describes the foundation of the Medieval Church, haughtilyconvinced of being appointed by God to rule the world and capa-ble of issuing excoriating anathema against its enemies; the Re-naissance Church, grappling with the consequences of theProtestant Reformation and the discovery of America; the conser-vative Church of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, lockedin an obtuse rejection of modernity; the first signs of détente withLeo XIII’s Rerum Novarum; and finally, the twentieth century mar-ked by John XXIII’s Pacem in Terris, when the Church repositioneditself as the moral compass of humanity.

120 pageswith illustrations/Published

Alessandro Barbero is an acclaimed scholar, known to the public at large and author of numerous works translatedall over the world. He teaches Medieval History at the University of Piedmont Orientale, in Vercelli. Among his books:Dictionary of the Middle Ages (2011 with Chiara Frugoni); The Middle Ages. History of voices, story of images (1999,with Chiara Frugoni); Charlemagne. A father of Europe (2011); The Battle. History of Waterloo (2011); 9 August 378:The day of the barbarians (2012); Barbarians, immigrants, refugees, deportees in the Roman Empire (2012); HolyWars. Crusades and jihad (2009); Lepanto. The battle of the three empires (2012).

A memorable trip through the words used by the popesacross the centuries

sold to: Payot et Rivage (French)

Pasado y Presente (Spanish)

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9 August 378The day of the barbarians

sold to:Atlantic (English)

Agerings (Swedish)Liberdade (Portuguese in Brazil)

Lepanto The battle of the three empires

sold to:Pasado y Presente (Spanish)

Flammarion (French)Alfa (Turkish)

Gingko Book (Chinese Simplified)

Ariel (Spanish)

BARBARA FRALE

The dark Legend of theTemplars

Magic, occultism, satanism – the KnightsTemplar are at the centre of a tale of mythand persecution, a dark legend created by

King Philip of France and reinforced by PopeClement V. In 1099, the first Crusaders fromthe West conquered the Holy City and foun-

ded the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. A few years later, the King of Jerusalem

supported the creation of a religious militia,a body of combatants whose stated mission

was to protect pilgrims on their journey tovisit the Holy Land.

Steeped since its origins in an aura of myth and legend, the Orderof the Knights Templar quickly expanded to become an extremelylarge multi-national organisation. The Templars were not only va-liant warriors; they were also extremely skilled bankers who ma-naged the treasuries of several Christian kingdoms. Theirsuccesses contributed to expanding the legend surrounding them,but when in 1307 King Philip the Fair, with the help of the Inquisition, accused them of heresy, their story took a dark turn:suppressed by Pope Clement V in 1312, the Order of the KnightsTemplar never ceased to attract the world’s curiosity and lived onin the form of a posthumous legend, reinventing itself under diffe-rent guises over the centuries, until – most recently – in DanBrown’s Da Vinci Code. Barbara Frale, Head of the Secret Vatican Archives and author ofbest-selling book The Templars (over 30,000 copies sold), providesus here with a new history of the Knights Templar and of the darklegend that, since the eighteenth century, has seen their name as-sociated with various conspiracy theories.

Barbara Frale, a historian of the Middle Ages and an expert of ancient documents, is an archivist at the Vatican Secret Archives. Shehas collaborated with various newspapers and television channels in Italy and abroad on the making of historical reportages and do-cumentaries. Amongst her most recent publications are: The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth (Il Mulino, 2009); The Prince and the Fisher-man. Pius XII, Nazism and Saint Peter’s Tomb (Mondadori, 2011); The Secret Language of the Gods (Mondadori, 2012); The True Storyof Celestine V, the Pope who Resigned (UTET, 2013); The Templars’ Rome (Il Mulino, 2014); Francesco’s War. The Youth of a Rebel Saint(UTET, 2016).

A new history of the Knights Templar and their legend based ondocuments which have been lost for the last three centuries

A dark legend, a story of War and Holyness

240 pagesPublished

GASTONE BRECCIA

Christ’s ShieldThe Wars of the Eastern RomanEmpire

The most turbulent and glorious centuries ofthe military history of the Eastern Roman Em-

pire, from the defeat at Adrianople in 378,which forced Emperor Theodosius to reformthe entire defence system, until the death of

Basil II (1025), the king who defeated the Bul-gars, returning Byzantium to a safe haven and

to domination of the Balkans and the entireEastern Mediterranean.

‘My brothers, let us keep fear of God in mind and let us struggleto avenge the divine sacrilege. (…) Let us honour the independentempire of the Romans, and let us stand against the impiouslyarmed enemy. (…) Danger is not unrequited, but the way to eter-nal life. Let us stand courageously, and the Lord God will help usand will destroy our enemies.’

Byzantine emperor Heraclius addressed his soldiers with thesewords in 622, at the launch of a great attack against the Persians.Nothing expresses better the will to resist of an Empire that forcenturies was forced to defend itself from continuous waves ofwarmongering enemies, attracted to its borders by the mirage ofConstantinople, splendid ‘Queen of Cities’ on the Bosphorus, pro-tected by sturdy defensive walls and able to resist all assaults.

Gastone Breccia has a PhD in Historical Sciences and has researched Byzantine Civilization since 1997, first at the University of Basili-cata and later – since academic year 2001/2002 – at the University of Pavia. In recent years he has dedicated himself to studying Mili-tary History. An expert in military theory, he has conducted field studies in Afghanistan (2011) and Kurdistan (Iraq and Syria, 2015). Hesits on the Board of Directors of the Italian Society for Military History (Società Italiana di Storia Militare or SISM) and collaborates withFocus Wars magazine. Among his most recent publications are: The Art of War. From Sun Tzu to Clausewitz (edited by; Einaudi, 2009);The Sons of Mars. The Art of War in Ancient Rome (Mondadori, 2012); The Art of Guerrilla (Il Mulino, 2013); The Afghan Wars (Il Mu-lino, 2014); The War on ISIS. A journal from the Kurdish Front (Il Mulino, 2016).

378 - 1025: what happened along the borders of the longest-lasting empire in history

426 pagesPublished

DOMENICO LOSURDO

Western MarxismHow it was born, how it died andhow it can rise again

There was a time when Marxism was an obligatory point of refe-rence for any philosophical and political debate: those years saw the biggest victories for ‘Western Marxism’, which presented itself in stark contrast to its Eastern counterpart, accused of being a state ideology that propped up ‘Socialist’ regimes in Eastern Eu-rope and Asia. Although at first the October revolution was vie-wed with hope, 20th century Communism contributed to the disintegration of the global colonial complex rather than creating a radically new social system. An extraordinary result that We-stern Marxism failed adequately to understand or appreciate. Hence its crisis and collapse. If it is to be revived, it must examine the anticolonial revolution and answer three key questions: what has the global anticolonial uprising meant in terms of freedom and emancipation? How is the clash between colonialism and an-ticolonialism played out today? What relationship was there bet-ween the anticolonial and anticapitalist struggles? Losurdo puts these questions to the great authors of the 20th century – Bloch, Lukács, Adorno and Foucault – and of today – Agamben, Badiou and Žižek – in a heated debate that combines historical reconstruction and philosophical enquiry.

Domenico Losurdo is an emeritus professor at the University of Urbino. Hiswidely translated publications include: Historical Revisionism. Problems andmyths; The Original Sin of the 20th Century; Liberalism: A Counter-History;Class War. A political and philosophical history; The Non Violence. A historybeyond the mith. For Laterza he has also edited Hegel’s Historical and Politi-cal Writings and the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels.

Marxism in the West: its birth, evolution and collapse, leadingup to one final question: might it make a comeback today and, ifso, under what circumstances?

224 pagesPublished

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Historic Revisionism350 pages

sold to:Verso Books (English)

Boitempo (Portuguese in Brazil)Prosvjeta (Croatian)

The Class Struggle A political and philosophical history

392 pages

sold to:Boitempo (Portuguese in Brazil)

Ayrinti (Turkish)

Pinar (Turkish)Into Kustannus (Finnish)

Tact (Romanian)Shanghai Sanhui (Chinese simplified)

Liberalism. A Counter History384 pages

sold to:La Decouverte (French)

Verso (English)Epo (Dutch)

Delga (French)Luciole (Korean)

Intervencion Cultural (Spanish)Papyrossa (German)

A/Synechia (Greek)

SERGIO ROMANO

War, Debts and DemocracyA Brief History from Bismarck to Today

To understand the current polarisation and disputes in Europe on the issues of austerity

politics and the national debt, it is important that we bear in mind the historical develop-

ment of the relationship between creditors and debtors.

This is the task undertaken by Sergio Romano in this book, which describes the complex na-ture of European debt over the last 150 years,

the interdependency between countries and the key role played by mutual trust in

overcoming challenges and supporting recovery.

The Treaty of Versailles at the close of the Great War sentencedGermany to pay 132 billion gold marks in reparations. Keynes,who viewed the interdependency of European economies as farmore important than exacting compensation for the war, objectedthat anything above 2 billion was unreasonable. Soon, the win-ners’ short-sightedness was revealed: humiliated and resentful,Germany became fertile ground for the rise of the Nazism. Every-thing changed after World War II: the Marshall Plan funded Euro-pean reconstruction and later, at the 1953 London Agreement,creditor nations agreed to cancel just over 50% of the Germandebt. But debts can also be contracted in times of peace. In recentyears, Europe has failed to form a united front on the issue. TheGreek debt debate began in 2009 and was followed by a crisis inGreek-German relations: Greece accuses Germany of failing to ho-nour debts contracted during the war, while Germany remainsfirm in its desire to see the rules strictly applied. The Union isstruggling under the weight of the crisis.

Sergio Romano is a historian, essayist and diplomat. He has taught in various universities in Italy and abroad, includingHarvard and Bocconi. He has a column in Italian daily “Corriere della Sera”. His most recent publications include: Artin War (2013); Dying of Democracy. Between authoritarian trends and populism (2013), The Decline of the AmericanEmpire (2014), In Praise of the Cold War. A Counter-history (2015) and The Fourth Shore. From the war in Libya to theArab uprisings (2015). Laterza’s back list also includes The Unequal Exchange. Italy and the US from Wilson to Clinton(1995).

The history of debt in European countries over the last 150years.

142 pagesPublished

SERGIO FABBRINI

DoublingA new vision for Europe

The author sets aside the idea of one-size-fits-all and, in light ofthese considerations, imagines a new, concrete model to build adifferent Europe. The book suggests separating states that have astructural reason to form a political union (as is the case with cen-tral and western European countries) from states that have an ex-clusively economic interest in the integration process (the islandsand peninsulas in the North, eastern states that have recently re-gained national sovereignty). The first group should proceed to-wards the formation of a true federal union, laying the politicaland constitutional groundwork for an ‘ever closer union’. The aim, then, is to break up and rebuilt, integrate and disinte-grate, constructing a diverse but connected Europe. The answerto Europe’s age-old problems lies in a decentralised federal union(unlike the current Eurozone) in which crucial political decisions(relating to security, foreign policy, internal order, migration andmonetary policies) are shared. It would bring much-needed stabi-lity to a continent that is increasingly troubled by populism, natio-nalism and Euro-phobia.

Sergio Fabbrini, Director of the School of Government at the LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome, teaches Political Science and Inter-national Relations for the same institute and Comparative Politics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the editor of the“Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica” (Italian Political Science Review) and was a recipient of the Premio Capalbio per l’Europa (‘CapalbioPrize for Europe’) in 2011. Recent publications include Why leaders count and how to control them (Marsilio 2011) and Which Euro-pean Union? Europe after the Euro Crisis (Cambridge University Press 2015). Laterza publications include: The European Union. Publicpolicy (with F. Morata, 2002); The European Union. Institutions and actors in a supra-national system (2002); The Europization of Italy(2003); Comparative Politics (2008).

The single European market requires asmaller, stronger political union

We deceived ourselves into thinking that an ever-expanding Europe would harmonise the differences, and we succeeded in fuelling mutual distrust and crippling the decision-making process.

208 pagesPublished

160 pagesPublished

GIAN ENRICO RUSCONI

Pope Francis’ narrativetheology

Francis’ new hermeneutic and semantic drivesignals a powerful new theology. Gian Enrico

Rusconi looks at the implications it might havefor the Church, laity and society

Pope Francis owes his great expressiveness to a new kind of ‘nar-rative theology’, which combines tradition and innovation and isaccessible to all, believers and non-believers. The Pope is talkingfirst and foremost to practicing Catholics. But he is also reachingout to Catholics in name only, who now make up the majority ofthe population and possess a latent, residual religious culture. Forthem, key Christian concepts such as creation, original sin, redem-ption and salvation remain vague and elusive. Bergoglio intends tobreathe new life into them, using a kind of ‘narrative theology’that brings biblical and evangelical events up to date by drawingparallels with the present day. That is not to say that his theologi-cal narrative is completely problem-free. For instance, the empha-sis on God’s ‘unconditional mercy’ means that traditional tenetssuch as penance, punishment and atonement are left undefined.Bergoglio is thus enacting an arduous redefinition of the very con-cept of sin: “we are all sinners, but we are forgiven”.

What are the possible theological and doctrinal repercussions?Where will this ‘revolution’ lead us? What will the consequencesbe for the culture of the Church and of society as a whole?

The widespread idea that Pope Francis is ‘strong’ on pastoralcare but ‘weak’ on theology is a misconception.

Gian Enrico Rusconi is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Turin, a Fellow of the Wissenschaft-skolleg in Berlin, Gastprofessor at the Freie Universität in Berlin and a columnist for “La Stampa” newspaper. Laterzapublications include, Can We Do Without Civil Religion? (1999), Berlin. The Reinvention of Germany (2009) and WhatRemains of the West (2012).

Bodei - Giorello - Marzano - Veca

The Cardinal Virtues

PRUDENCE“Its etymological root (which also produced theword ‘providence’), suggests human foresight

and caution. Someone is ‘providens’ – contrac-ted to produce ‘prudens’ – if he’s able to avoiddanger or damage. Prudence, then, is the fore-

most deliberative virtue, which allows thosewho practice it to distinguish good from evil and

to make plans for the future in a present thathas taken to heart the lessons of the past.”

Remo Bodei teaches Philosophy at UCLA andhas taught at the University and the Normale inPisa. He is a member of the Accademia dei Lin-cei. Among his Laterza publications, The Life ofThings (2009) and Generations. The age of life,

the age of things (2014), all translated in severallanguages.

How did Greek and Christian philosophers describe cardinal virtues? How have they been reinterpreted in modern times?Four prominent Italian philosophers lead us on a tour through past and present.

150 pagesPublication in June

JUSTICEGlobalisation leads us to reflect on a relatively

original, or at least recent, question, which hasno easy answers: what would a just world look

like? Since the ‘90s research in the field of politi-cal philosophy, justice theory and moral philosophyhas tended to focus on the characteristics of a glo-bal justice theory. “Can we accept that justice,

law and rights are still fixed within closed politi-cal communities, while a vast array of other po-

wers cross borders, shaping the lives andprospects of people around the world without

their consent? How much importance should weattribute to borders when we talk about justice?

Salvatore Veca teaches Political Philosophy at the IUSSInstitute for Advanced Study in Pavia. Among his La-terza works, “There is no alternative”. False! (2014).

FORTITUDE “The brave person feels fear but does not hesi-tate to face and overcome it. The cowardly, the

daring, the brave all have to confront their fears,but they all react differently. This is why we can’tspeak of bravery without first understanding thefear we all experience, which the brave are able

to overcome. Without fear, we would never havethe chance to prove our courage. Courage can-not exist without fear because courage consists

in the ability to overcome fear.”

Michela Marzano teaches Moral Philosophy andPolitics at Paris Descartes University.

She has served as an MP in Italy since 2013. Re-cent publications include I wished I was a butter-

fly (Mondadori, 2013), Having Faith. Why wemust believe in others (Mondadori, 2014) and

Dad, Mum and Gender (UTET, 2015). For Laterzashe pubished The Right to Be Me (2014).

TEMPERANCEWhat does it mean to be ‘temperate’, accordingto Milton? Defending one’s autonomy and theautonomy of one’s fellow citizens and ensuringthat women and men can live together in a so-

ciety where words are never in thrall to an impe-rious, uncontrollable will. Each of us should

behave as we see fit without trying to imposeour rules on others.

Giulio Giorello teaches Philosophy of Science atMilan University and writes for the “Corriere

della Sera” newspaper. Among his Laterza publi-cations, The Ethics of Rebellion. Interview on

science and revolution (2017).

MARIO LIVERANI

AssyriaThe prehistory of imperialism

Now that despotic ‘empires of evil’ have made a comeback in theEast, can Assyria be considered an imperial prototype? Historicalconsensus in the XX century viewed imperialism as strictly linkedto modernity. Mario Liverani proves that this is not the case. Anempire is a political-territorial formation that aims to continuallyexpand its borders and gain control (though direct or indirect con-quest) of the rest of the world, until there is nowhere left to go.Its ‘mission’ is an ideal project based on political (quasi-theologi-cal) theory, and it takes the shape of idealised principles. Thesevary with time, fluctuating between religious and civil fundamen-talism. Its ideological justification is also susceptible to change,with one constant: all people/states with expansionist designshave practical goals, but only the ones sustained by a strong ideo-logy (religious, military etc.) are capable of putting these goalsinto practice. This is was the case with ancient Assyria.

Mario Liverani is Emeritus Professor of Near Eastern History with La Sa-pienza University in Rome, and has held courses in many US and Europeanuniversities. He worked on archaeological sites in Syria (Ebla), Turkey (Arslan-tepe) and Libya (Acacus). His publications with Laterza include: War and Di-plomacy in the Ancient East (1994); Uruk, the First City (1998); Beyond theBible. Ancient History of Israel (2003); The Ancient Near East. History, Society,Economy (2011); Imagining Babylon. The ancient eastern city (2013) thatwon the Zayed Book Award for Arabic Culture in Other Languages.

Travel back in time to the Assyrian civilization, an example of imperialist ambition in antiquity

384 pageswith illustrations/Published

Previous titles

Imagining Babylon The Ancient Eastern City

558 pages

Zayed Book Award 2014 Zayed Book Award 2014 for Arabic Culture in Otherfor Arabic Culture in Other

LanguagesLanguagessold to:

Kalima (Arab)De Grutyer (English)Bellaterra (Spanish)

The Ancient Near East History, Society, Economy

912 pages /with Illustrations

sold to:Routledge (English)

GIORGIO VAN STRATEN

Tales of Lost Books

Lost books:

Romano Bilenchi, The Avenue George Byron, Memoirs

Ernest Hemingway, Juvenilia Bruno Schulz, The Messiah

Nikolaj Gogol’, Dead Souls (part II)Malcolm Lowry, In Ballast to the White Sea

Walter Benjamin, What was in the Black SuitcaseSylvia Plath, Double exposure

Books that were burnt, torn, stolen, or simply disappeared, butwhich were written, which certainly existed. The pursuit of anunattainable perfection, amid historical happenstance and tales ofwoe, censorship and even self-censorship, and the actions ofheirs: there are many reasons why books can be lost. Giorgio vanStraten held one of these books in his own hands but was incapa-ble of saving it. It is precisely this loss that triggered his pursuit ofthe eight books in this story, tales told around the world in pagesthat are no more but which it can always be hoped are some-where out there. The author is at turns traveller, investigator andspy, he sifts through the clues, peruses his leads, some strongerthan others, and interviews friends and experts to learn more.Every lost book has its own story that is in no way like any other,with the exception of a few details that can weave strange inter-connections. From Byron and Sylvia Plath’s England to 1920sFrance and Hemingway, across Gogol’s Russia and on to the Spa-nish frontier which Walter Benjamin sought to cross to flee his de-stiny, from Nazi-occupied Poland where Bruno Schulz was killedafter an argument between German officers and finally to a smallremote village in Canada where Malcolm Lowry took refuge…

144 pagesPublished

Giorgio van Straten is director of the Italian Cultural Institute of New York and one of the editors of the literature review Nuovi Argo-menti. He is the author of the novels Generation (Garzanti, 1987), Rhythms for our Dance (Marseille, 1992), My Name, A Living Me-mory (2000, Viareggio Prize), The Truth is of No Use (Mondadori, 2008) and Love Story in Wartime (Mondadori, 2014). He also wrotethe collections of short stories You Got the Wrong Forest (Garzanti, 1989) and The Lost Commitment (Editori Riuniti, 2002). He hastranslated the works of authors such as Kipling, London and Stevenson and has edited, with others, Judaism and Anti-Judaism: Imageand Prejudice (Giuntina, 1989), Autobiography of a Newspaper (Editori Riuniti, 1989), Juve! Eleven Writers Describe a Great Passion(Rizzoli, 2013).

A hunt for eight mythical books like the miners hunted gold: allthe miners are convinced of its existence and of the fact that itwill be them to find it, but in reality nobody has incontroverti-ble proof, no-one safe passage.

Books that existed and now they no longer exist. These are thelost books. Not those forgotten or dreamed up by the authorand never written… The lost books are those that the authorwrote, somebody read, and which were subsequently destroyedor vanished into thin air.

sold to: Actes Sud (French)

Suhrkamp (German)Pushkin Press (English)

Pasado y Presente (Spanish)Pantheon (Turkish)

Giangdong People (Chinese simplified)

SIMONE and ILARIA MARCHESI

Live in Pompeii- Contromano Series

Pompeii is the most visited tourist at-traction in the World. What if a group

of kids from seven to eleven age un-derstand what Pompeii was much bet-

ter than the thousands of adults whovisit it everyday?

Everyone has heard about Pompeii.But rather than studying the ruins as relics of an ancient past, thisbook recounts three days during which a group of children visitedthe city for the first time.So, as in a conversation between children and adult guides, theauthors explain what it means to experience Pompeii and find itstill alive, in the labyrinth of the dead city, shifting between pastand present, collective and individual memory.

laria Marchesi lectures in Latin and Ancient Greek at HofstraUniversity, New York State, where she is Director of theClassics Programme. In 2008, she published a monographfor Cambridge University Press: The Art of Pliny's Letters: APoetics of Allusion in the Private Correspondence.

Two Italian University professors who emigrated to the US invite usto discover Pompeii in an unusual way: through the eyes of a groupof children who are visiting the ancient city for the first time

138 pagesPublished

Simone Marchesi teaches Medieval Italian Literature atPrinceton University. He has published two monographs: AStratigraphy of the Decameron (Olschki, 2004) and Danteand Augustine: Linguistics, Poetics, Hermeneutics (Universityof Toronto Press, 2011).

Adriana ValerioWomen’s Power inthe ChurchGiuditta, Chiara and the others

Before and after Mary the historyof the Church is studded with extraordinary female figures.

An evocative journey through theOld Testament and the Gospels.

Stefano BenzoniFragile Children152 pages

The kids’ angst, the parents’ sense ofinadeguacy and psychiatry’s compro-mises: taken together, they can proveextremely damaging to our children’s

happiness.

An essential reading for parents andteachers, who often struggle to

understand the needs, fears, reactionsand demands of young people.

Other Titles

Massimo MontanariStories about Food204 pages

Quirks and prejudices about food: themost famous Italian food historian col-

lects a series of tasty and captivating sto-ries answering some questions like: doesgood taste exist? Why “parmigiana” is

not from Parma?

Andrea CarandiniGlimpses of RomeAn unusual guide to the ancient city272 pages

From Cicero’s house to a baker’s tomb.

Fifty itineraries along the history of the ancient Rome,

from its foundation to its fall.

Guido MazzoniGeneral Destinies124 pages

“A short, stunning essay on our lazyfreedom” Michele Serra

Today no Westerner expects anythingdecisive from history or politics; major

events are experienced as abstractions,mechanisms or spectacles, and every-

thing that we consider interesting is pla-yed out in the present tense and in the

private sphere.

Achille C. Varzi - Claudio CalosiTribulations of Philosophy 300 pages

A great philosophical poem, so simi-lar to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. But-

whereas Dante’s poem is abouthuman sins and moral felonies, this

one is about philosophical errors and fallacies.

ENGLISH TEXT AVAILABLE ENGLISH TEXT AVAILABLE

BRUNO MUNARI......A PAINTER, A DESIGNER,

AN INVESTIGATOR OF NEW ART FORMS.

BRUNO MUNARI MARKED A CRUCIAL

TURNING POINT IN THEWORLD HISTORY

OF DESIGN.

NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHINGpp. 392/with Illustrations

There is a creative capacity alive in everyone of us. Among the

great works by Munari, this is thebook that perhaps makes the rea-der happiest due to the enchan-

ting demonstration that knowinghow to design something is not an

exclusive and innate gift.

DESIGN AS ARTpp. 256/with Illustrations

The classic, highly original work inwhich a great Italian artist,

famous all over the world for hisinventive and whimsical creations,

has demolished once and for allthe myth of the artist-divo and

substituted it with the “designer”.

FANTASIApp. 224/with Illustrations

Fantasy, invention and creativity in visual communication: is it pos-

sible to understand how thesehuman faculties work?

How are they related to intelli-gence and memory? How can they

be encouraged?

DESIGN AND VISUALCOMMUNICATIONpp. 384/with Illustrations

What is graphic art? Who are thedesigners? How does their creati-vity work? What the use of techni-

ques and materials? An entertaining guide to under-

standing the principles, rules and applications of design..

ARTIST AND DESIGNERpp. 114/with Illustrations

In extremely lively and entertai-ning pages, the theme of the in-creasingly separation betweenpure art and art production -

inextricabily linked to the indu-strial production and mass consumption

Sold to: Gustavo Gili (Spanish) - Pyramiyd (French)- Doosung (Korean) -

Sold to: Penguin Classics (English) - Doosung (Korean) - Pyramyd (French) - Janus Rubato (Czech) - Aronov (Russian) - d2d (Polish)

Sold to: Doosung (Korean) - Edicoes 70 (Portuguese) - Aronov(Russain) - Czuly Barbarzynca Press (Polish)

Sold to: Gustavo Gili (Spanish) - Pyramyd (French) - Doosung (Korean)

Sold to: Beijing Book Paradise (Chinese) - Edicoes 70 (Portuguese)

Editori LaterzaVia di Villa Sacchetti 17

00197 Roma

www.laterza.it

Foreign RightsAgnese Gualdrini

foreignrights@laterza.it