Abstract

This essay outlines the most recent outcomes of historical research into the Risorgimento in its global dimension. First, it illustrates how, as part of the transnational turn in history studies, scholars have successfully shown the multiple ways in which the Italian Peninsula and its process of nation building were closely connected to – and affected by – mid-nineteenth-century European, Mediterranean and trans-oceanic dynamics, such as the Crimean war, the transportation and communication revolution and the 1870 Franco-Prussian conflict. The essay goes on to suggest new perspectives for further investigation linked to the study of international mobility in terms of trans-Atlantic exchange of ideas, know-how and expertise, as well as of technological inventions and innovations