-The book marks the 500th anniversary of the creation of the Venice Ghetto -Accompanies a large exhibition currently taking place in Venice at the Palazzo Ducale -Relevant for social and urban historians, as well as all those who are interested in the history of Venice, and Jewish history -Dontatella Calabi will be promoting his book at the 'Beyond the Ghetto' symposium in New York, hosted by the Center for Jewish History, on 18-19 September 2016. 500 years ago in Venice, the first ghetto was born. It was the first of many 'Jewish enclosures' ordained by political powers, such as the Venetian senate. A place of confinement, it soon became an important cosmopolitan and commercial center of the Republic. The architectural structure of its housing, which became extraordinarily high to accommodate the increasing number of inhabitants, is strictly interlaced with Venetian history, economy and culture. As one of the main Jewish centers in Italy and the Mediterranean, Venice played a crucial role in the Jewish world. The Venetian word 'geto' (from 'gettare', to throw away) originated from the sector of Venice where scrap metal accumulated from foundries. This was the area assigned to the Jews. Thus the word, over the course of time, has become a synonym for segregation. "Venice, the Jews, and Europe" exhibition runs in Venice until November 13 2016. Dontatella Calabi will be promoting his book at the 'Beyond the Ghetto' symposium in New York, hosted by the Center for Jewish History, on 18-19 September 2016.

In the fifteenth century, even before the city states of the Apennine Peninsula began to coalesce into what would become, several centuries later, a nation, "Italy" exerted enormous influence over all of Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. Its cultural, economic, and political dominance is utterly astonishing and unique in world history. Viewing the Italy--the many Italies--of that time through the lens of today allows us to gather a fragmented, multi-faceted and seemingly contradictory history into a single unifying narrative that speaks to our current reality as much as it does to a specific historical period. This is what the acclaimed French historian, Fernand Braudel, achieves here. He brings to life the two extraordinary centuries that span the Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque and analyzes the complex interaction between art, science, politics and commerce during Italy's extraordinary cultural flowering.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Traces the aftermath of the 1996 Venice opera house fire, an event that devastated Venetian society and was investigated by the author, who through interviews with local figures learned about the region's rich cultural history.

On March 16, 1978 Aldo Moro, a former Prime Minister of Italy, was ambushed in Rome. Within three minutes the gang killed his escort and bundled Moro into one of three getaway cars. An hour later the terrorist group the Red Brigades announced that Moro was in their hands; on March 18 they said he would be tried in a "people's court of justice." Seven weeks later Moro's body was discovered in the trunk of a car parked in the crowded center of Rome.

In this revelatory history of gourmet Italy from antiquity to today, the author of Cosa Nostra examines the centuries of religious, political, and sociological events that effectively thrust Italian food into today's global limelight.

In this consummate portrait of the Italian people, bestselling author, publisher, journalist, and politician Luigi Barzini delves deeply into the Italian national character, discovering both its great qualities and its imperfections.