The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic: History, Architecture, Economics, Society ed. by Andrea Canepari

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic: History, Architecture, Economics, Society ed. by Andrea Canepari Jeffery T. Morris Canepari, Andrea, ed. The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic: History, Architecture, Economics, Society. Saint Joseph's University Press, 2021. Humans depend on the strength of their connections and relationships with one another to ensure their health and resilience as individuals, communities, societies, nations, and, ultimately, a species. We are social beings who need one another to survive and to thrive. It was therefore both fortunate and gratifying to encounter a book that expansively covers the centuries-long relationship between the people of two nations, Italy and the Dominican Republic, which has enriched both countries. In The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic, Andrea Canepari, who served as Italy's ambassador to the Dominican Republic, brings together in one large volume an impressive number of contributions from individuals of wide-ranging backgrounds, expertise, and experience, who collectively tell a fascinating story of the long and multifaceted relationship between Italians and Dominicans. The English version of the book is published by Saint Joseph's University Press in Philadelphia. The work covers a wide range of topics, arranged into the following sections: history; architecture; literature and the arts; economics and science; and journalism, law, and society. Within each topical section are diverse contributions of varying length, depth of coverage, level of analysis, and point of view. It is this diversity that makes reading The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic such a delight. In the subsection on ecclesiastical history, for instance, the reader is treated to a historical sweep across Dominican time and space, beginning with a survey of the clash between Bishop Alessandro Geraldini and local officials over indigenous peoples' rights in the early 1500s, to an account of Archbishop Ricardo Pittini's mid-twentieth-century management of the Church's relationship with the Dominican government during the long [End Page 440] rule of Rafael Trujillo. Likewise, in the political history subsection, contributions cover a broad swath of time, from a comparison of Dominican hero Juan Pablo Duarte with celebrated Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini, to an intriguing account of an Italian soldier of the Second World War who ended his life fighting with Dominican insurgents in the 1965 uprising in Santo Domingo. The other sections—spanning a wide range of Italian-Dominican cultural, political, scientific, economic, and other social interactions and connections over the history of the Dominican Republic—are equally diverse and informative. The book is also filled with many interesting and evocative photographs and illustrations that enhance the reader's engagement with the work. The section on architecture, divided into colonial and modern parts, is particularly rich in photographs of early and modern Italian-Dominican architecture. One of the photographs of the interior of the National Palace serves as the book's cover photo and exemplifies the vivid and sometimes outright gorgeous photographs the reader will find in this section as well as throughout the book. Some readers may find puzzling the unevenness of the chapters, which range from half-page thumbnail sketches to full treatment of historical subjects, and from annotated lists of archival records to incisive academic analyses. However, this unusual diversity of compilation lends both a charm and an interest to the work that, once readers give themselves over to it, opens a unique, immersive, and rewarding reading experience that can be appreciated by scholars and lay persons alike. For those who are interested in Italian-Dominican relations, Italian and Dominican history, or in general how relationships between nations enrich not just national cultures but the human experience broadly, Andrea Canepari's The Italian Legacy in the Dominican Republic is a useful, edifying, and entertaining contribution to the literature on cross-national and global relations. The editor and all the many contributors are to be applauded for producing this informative and enjoyable book. [End Page 441] Jeffery T. Morris Independent Scholar Copyright © 2022 Association of Global South Studies, Inc.