This book brings together fifteen classic essays from a leading scholar, Richard Bellamy, who traces the history of Italian political thought from Cesare Beccaria to Norberto Bobbio. Written over the past twenty-five years, these works constitute the first account in English of the modern Italian political tradition. Bellamy pays special attention to the different ways various Italian theorists link politics and ethics and their alternate conceptions of state and democracy. Among the thinkers discussed are Cesare Beccaria, Antonio Genovesi, Giuseppe Mazzini, Benedetto Croce, Giovanni Gentile, Antonio Gramsci, Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Norberto Bobbio.