Peasant spirit: Three readings of Italian agrarian history [Spirito contadino tre letture di storia agraria Italiana]

This is a review article of three recent (2019) books that deal – each of them in a different way – with the Italian agrarian world. The first, by Adriano Prosperi, takes into account the dire life of Italian peasants in the long 19th century. The second is a collection of texts about economics, agriculture, landscape and territory by Luigi Einaudi, one of the most representative and regarded Italian intellectuals and politicians of the first half of the 20th century, the first president of the Italian Republic constitutionally elected. The third, and last, is a book on agronomy and floriculture by Libereso Guglielmi, gardener, a native of Bordighera in the Western Ligurian Riviera, botanist of deep learning, who helped to introduce and cultivate a wide range of exotic plants in Italy. I argue that agriculture, albeit partially forgotten and economically marginal in post-industrial Italy, still has much to tell, teach, to the contemporary world.