Piero Bevilacqua University “La Sapienza” Department of Contemporary History P.le A. Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy piero.bevilacqua@uniroma1.it

Piero Bevilacqua is Professor of Contemporary History at University of Rome “La Sapienza”. He taught “Economic history”, “Social history”, “History of Southern Italy“, “History of Risorgimento” at the Universities of Salerno, Bari and Rome.

He took part in many meetings and congresses of which he reminds only those of international importance. In 1982 he took part, in Naples and Sorrento, in the Congress «Trasformazioni delle società rurali nei paesi dell’Europa occidentale e mediterranea (secc. XIX-XX)»; in 1984, in London, he presented a paper at the General Annual Meeting of the Association for Studies of Modern Italy; in 1984, in Florence, he participated with his report at the seminar «Aree, regioni, stati. Le coordinate spaziali della storia contemporanea (sec.XIX - XX); in 1987 in Oviedo (Spain) he presented a paper at the European meeting organized at «Cursos de Estudios Superiores en Asturias Josè Ortega y Gasset»; in the same year, in Cesena, he gave a report at the Convention «Il paesaggio agrario europeo dalla fine del medioevo all’età contemporanea»; in 1989, in Rome, he presented a paper at the meeting «Ambiente naturale e rigenerazione delle risorse nell’Europa moderna»; in 1991 in Mantova he produced a report at the interdisciplinary Congress «Uomo e ambiente: due storie storie in parallelo. Effetti antropogenici e naturali sugli equilibri dell’ambiente»; in 1991 at the University of Girona (Barcelona, Spain) he presented a paper at the Seminar «Un nou campo d’estudi: Historia ecologica i Historia de l’ecologia»; in 1992 in New York, he made a report at the «Annual Columbia University Seminar on Modern Italian Studies»; in 1999 in London, he had a paper in a meeting between American and Italian historians organised at the College University of London.

He has extensively written on history of Southern Italy: Le campagne del Mezzogiorno tra fascismo e dopoguerra, Einaudi Torino 1980; La Calabria (edited with A.Placanica) in Storia delle Regioni, Einaudi, Torino 1985; Breve storia dell’Italia meridionale, Donzelli Roma (1993, 1997); on history of territory, Le bonifiche in Italia dal Settecento a oggi, with M.Rossi-Doria, Laterza Bari 1980; on history of agricolture he is the editor of Storia dell’agricoltura italiana in età contemporanea, 3 vols, Marsilio Venezia, 1989-1991, La mucca è savia. Ragioni storiche della crisi alimentare europea, Donzelli Roma 2002; on environmental history Venezia e le acque. Una metafora planetaria, Donzelli Roma, (1995,1998, 2000) - translated in French (L.Levi, Paris 1996) and in German (Campus Verlag, Frankfurt-New York, 1998), Tra natura e storia. Uomini, ambiente, economie, Donzelli Roma (1996, 2000), L’utilità della storia, Donzelli Roma, 1997, 2000, 2007; Demetra e Clio. Uomini e ambiente nella storia, Donzelli Roma, 2002.; Prometeo e l’Aquila. Dialogo sul dono del fuoco e i suoi dilemmi, Donzelli Roma, 2005; La terra è finita. Breve storia dell’ambiente, Laterza, Roma- Bari, 2006; Miseria dello sviluppo, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 2008.
In 1986 he founded with other scholars the Istituto Meridionale di Storia e Science Sociali, of which he is chairmen, and the review «Meridiana», of which he has been the editor from 1987 until 2004.