1. The beautiful country : Porta Pia ; Glory and misery ; "The crux of the Italian problem" ; Islands, highlands and plains -- 2. A violent past : Leo's legacy ; Goths, Lombards and Byzantines ; A holy forgery ; The communes ; The Venetian exception ; The medieval Mezzogiorno ; The Italian wars and the Sack of Rome ; Under foreign yokes -- 3. Echoes and reverberations : Two Italies, or three? ; Civismo ; A linguist's playground ; Superiority and sensitivity ; The vincolo esterno ; Of furbi and fessi ; Fragile loyalties ; The prime minister who vanished from history ; Trasformismo -- 4. A hall of mirrors : The Minister for Simplification ; A plethora of laws (and law-enforcers) ; Bureaucracy ; Truth and verità ; Mysteries and the "misty port" ; Pirandello -- 5. Fantasia : Myths and legends ; A phantom army ; Pinocchio ; Copiatura ; Masks and messages ; Opera ; Padania declares independence ; Dietrologia -- 6. Face values : The neo-Fascist's bare arms ; Style and look ; Symbolism ; Talking visually ; Videocracy ; Bella (and brutta) figura -- 7. Life as art : Treasuring life ; A thick layer of stardust ; Work and leisure ; La tavola ; The Mediterranean diet ; Slow food and fast food ; A brief history of pasta ; Foreign food, what foreign food? -- 8. Gnocchi on Thursdays : D'Antona and Biagi ; A love of the familiar ; "Acts of God" and acts of man ; One step to the right ; Conservatism, technophobia and gerontocracy ; The "BOT people" ; From catenaccio to gambling fever -- 9. Holy orders : A blurred line ; The bloody end of Muslim Italy ; Jews and ghettos ; The Waldensians ; Freemasonry ; Blasphemy ; The Lateran Pacts ; Christian Democracy ; A less Catholic Italy ; Comunione e Liberazione ; Sant'Egidio ; Padre Pio ; The "testicles of His Holiness" -- 10. Le Italiane, attitudes change : Great-aunt Clorinda ; From Mozzoni to the Manifesto di rivolta femminile ; Gender and language ; Veline ; Desperate housewives ; Ricatto sessuale ; The influence of Berlusconi ; If not now, when? ; Change in (and on) the air ; La Mamma: glorified but unsupported -- 11. Lovers and sons : Al cuore non si comanda? ; A sexual revolution (within limits) ; Sensuous she-cats and "Italian stallions" ; Adultery ; Prostitution ; Contraception and the mystery of the (missing) unplanned pregnancies ; Mammismo ; Gender stereotyping ; Homosexuality --

12. Family matters : An honored but changing institution ; Divorce ; The decline of marriage ; The Italian family firm: myths and realities ; The arrival of the badante ; Stay-at-home kids: spoiled or just broke? ; "Amoral familism" ; Menefreghismo

13. People who don't dance : From behind shades ; Wariness ; The Fox and the Cat ; To ciao or not to ciao? ; A love of titles ; Mistrust ; Alcohol (and teetotalism) ; Narcotics

14. Taking sides : Il piacere di stare insieme ; Guelphs and Ghibellines ; From the Genoa Cricket and Athletic Club to Berlusconi's AC Milan ; Professionalism, and professional fouls ; Gianni Brera and the footballing press ; Il processo del lunedi ; Fan radios ; The ultras ; Referees ; Calciopoli

15. Restrictive practices : Possessive instincts ; Catholicism and liberalism ; Lottizzazione ; Capitalism without competition ; Protectionism ; Shareholder pacts ; Enrico Cuccia and il salotto buono ; The never-ending tale of the foreign lettori

16. Of Mafias and Mafiosi : A relatively crime-free nation ; What makes a mafia? ; Cosa Nostra decapitated ; The rise of the Camorra and 'Ndrangheta ; Sciascia's palm tree line: organized crime creeps north ; An absence of trust and the legacy of unification

17. Temptation and Tangenti : How corrupt is Italy? ; The role of patronage ; A tolerance of graft ; Corruption and corruzione ; Nepotism ; "Everything in Rome comes at a price" ; The culture of the raccomandazione ; The cost of graft ; A "renaissance of corruption"

18. Pardon and justice : The navel of Italy ; Abusivismo ; Laws and conventions ; Pardon and justice ; The Sofri case ; Slow-moving courts ; The 1989 legal reform ; Garantisti versus giustizialisti ; The magistratura

19. Questions of identity : Italy has a birthday party ; Campanilismo and the frailty of separatism ; Concepts of Italia ; Diversity and disunity ; Dialects lose ground ; The north-south divide: perceptions and statistics ; "Italian-ness" ; Immigration ; Racism ; Sinti and Roma

Epilogue : Blue skies, blue seas, and unhappiness ; Italy's economic decline ; Rules and change ; The need for a dream ; Jep's smile.