The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan, 1886–1922 (Past and Present Publications) - Hardcover

This book analyses the business, geography and politics of shopkeeping in Milan between 1886 and 1922. The author addresses questions relating to petite bourgeois identity, and explains why shopkeepers sided with the political right. This is the first full-scale study of any aspect of the lives of the petite bourgeoisie in the pre-Fascist period.

"With great clarity Morris delineates the composition and economic geography of the esercenti, or shopkeepers....[His] book is a wonderful example of the injunction, hammered home by a new generation of Italianists like John Davis, to think local." American Historical Review

"...elegantly constructed and persuasive." Louise A. Tilly, Business History Review

"In analyzing the experience of the petite bourgeoisie 'on its own terms,' Morris has significantly added to our understanding of the business of shopkeeping itself. He has also contributed to our understanding of the politics, ideology, and local circumstances that influenced the behavior of the Milanese shopkeepers in the years prior to the Fascist takeover in Italy." Traci Andrighetti and Claudio G. Segrč, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"...a comprehensive, three-dimensional view of shopkeepers that belies easy political categorization or simplistic class interpretation, and yet which still manages to discern patterns and generalizations of real historical significance....an important contribution to our knowledge of politics in modern Italy, not only in its main themes but also in its examination of a previously unknown sector of society and its various formal associations. He provides the kind of careful, creative study based on primary resources that modern Italian historiography critically needs." Steven C. Hughes, Journal of Modern History