The Political Economy of Shopkeeping in Milan, 1886–1922

'... provides a wealth of information not just on shopkeeping , but on local government, socialism and the Italian cooperative movement. Morris's book - exhaustively researched and excellently produced - shows us for the first time, the difficult, tortured and contradictory road towards some sort of shopkeeper unity and self-identity.' John Foot, Association for the Study of Modern Italy 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. Segre, 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