LIBRI DI ANDREA GIUNTINI

This second issue of Archives of Italian economic and business history is dedicated to Franco Bonelli, a scholar who made an invaluable contribution to understanding Italian economic development thanks to his studies in economic and business history. A collection of essays by Amatori, Ciocca, Carparelli, D’Antone, Romanelli, Covino, Doria, Pino and Cerrito provides a thorough overview of the topics and research that characterize Bonelli’s interpretation of Italian capitalism.

In terms of imperial power, invested capital, financial risk, technological challenge, and public opinion involvement, submarine telegraphy is an extremely important page in the entire book of contemporary economic history. The first international telecommunications network, created thanks to submarine cables, was one of the privileged components in the debate over the establishment of the first global economy at the end of the nineteenth century. The innovative communication network reshaped the international assets of economic and political power. In 1866 the first cable was laid in the Atlantic gave a new measure of the distance between Europe and America.