| Summary: | Providing a historical overview of healthcare in Italy from its unification in 1861 to the present COVID-19 pandemic, this book analyses the political, social and cultural impact of Italian healthcare policy and medicine. The author examines the development of public health, hospitals, and primary care, and the building of healthcare systems across three political regimes in Italy: the liberal period (1861-1914), Fascism (1922-43), and the Italian Republic (1948 to the present day). By emphasising the embeddedness of health-related legislation in Italy's political and social background, this book offers a comparative account of Italian health policy, and contrasts this with developments in neighbouring European countries, Canada and the United States. The book focuses on the Italian government's reaction to the social and political impact of several diseases: pellagra; cholera; malaria; and tuberculosis, and explores the present-day response to the current COVID-19 pandemic. A timely and comprehensive read, this book will appeal to those teaching and researching Italian history and the history of medicine and healthcare more widely. Francesco Taroni is Professor of legal and social medicine at the University of Bologna in Italy. Previously, he has held managerial positions at a national and regional level. Internationally, he is Visiting Research Scientist at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College's Asano-Gonnella Center for Research in Medical Education and Health Care, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA, and has consulted for the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Francesco has published extensively on healthcare research and his most recent books include Politiche Sanitarie in Italia (Health Policies in Italy, 2011) and Il Volo del Calabrone: 40 Anni di Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (The Flight of the Bumblebee: 40 years of National Health Service, 2019).
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