The Land Tenure System and Class in Southern Italy<xref ref-type="fn" rid="FN1">*</xref>

Abstract

THE prevailing influence of idealistic thought is partially responsible for the scarce attention given by historians in Italy to problems of economic and social development in the south. Disregarded by the historians, these problems have been analyzed mainly by politicians and economists, and they frequently become more an object of political controversy than a subject of methodical research. Those acquainted with Italian political literature know how widely some general and very ambiguous slogans are used regarding the south and the evolution of its agriculture. It is common to hear of the Risorgimento as a missed agrarian revolution, of the feudalistic character of the new land tenure system, of immobility as the dominant feature of economic and social life. To this sterile controversy a new stimulus was brought, after the Second World War, by a group of young Marxist historians. Their work, undoubtedly important and stimulating in many aspects, has been so involved in the schemes of a forced Marxist interpretation of history as to make nonsense of what otherwise could have been an important revival and a new approach in the field of historical studies.1 An outsider to the field, I nevertheless have the impression that a critical point has finally been reached. Abstract controversy has run its course, and the way is open to scientific research. The progress of similar studies in other countries points more and more in this direction. I hope, therefore, that in a few years the theme of this paper will no longer be discussed by a precarious, inductive method, as here, but by the comparison, interpretation, and measurement of facts and documents. One of the first jobs of the historians should consist in finding and presenting an integrated interpretation of the numerous existing documents,2