About
8
Publications
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Introduction
I'm an associate professor of International History at the University of Siena. I wrote two books (Medicina e diplomazia; Il “banchetto cinese”) and several articles on Western imperialism. I'm carrying out a research project dealing with the Italian staff of the Chinese Maritime Customs (1881-1943). My current research interests include: Chinese foreign policy since 1949 and Western imperialism in late Qing and Republican China. I'm a member of the Association for Asian Studies.
Publications
Publications (8)
This paper focuses on the official representation of anti-colonial violence in British India relying on British sources. The Swadeshi (self-sufficiency) movement provides the starting point to reconstruct how, over the years, anti-colonial violence, particularly in Bengal and the Punjab, caused not only the implementation of a series of special and...
This paper focuses on the legacy of the 'Manila galleon' in the nineteenth century, when China still needed to import silver from abroad to sustain its silver-based economy. By that time, the white metal was introduced into the Empire mostly in the form of coins, which were much appreciated for their standard of weight and purity. In the 1850's, af...
For twenty years after Sino-Soviet normalization (1989), bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing have been variously termed as "constructive", "strategic", "limited", "pragmatic", and eventually "normal". Drawing on international literature, this article provides a historical overview of Russian-Chinese intercourse focusing on the shifts and...
In recent years China’s rapidly proliferating global interests have changed Western perception of the country, fuelling the debate about Beijing’s goals on the international stage. This article explores how the “China threat” theory has come to acquire vast popularity in the West, and particularly in the United States, since the 1990s, and which re...
In recent years China’s rapidly proliferating global interests have changed Western perception of the country, fuelling the debate about Beijing’s goals on the international stage. This article explores how the “China threat” theory has come to acquire vast popularity in the West, and particularly in the United States, since the 1990s, and which re...
Projects
Projects (2)
The debate over the use of the word ‘terrorism’ raises the question of whether past narratives and their genealogies can help identifying contemporary constraints and cultural determinants. We aim at verifying the use of the term in four case studies: China, Eritrea, India and Mexico. We will make use of a diachronic analysis to compare movements of resistance to the legitimate power in different parts of the world through the last century, to assess varying perceptions as well as persistent narratives. The comparative approach will put to a test such perceptions and narratives according to multiple facets, involving the historical, institutional, political and anthropological dimensions. In the end, it will be necessary to discuss the ‘historical continuities’ hypothesis and assess if and how dominant groups in each society have incorporated concepts and definitions in their political rhetoric as a tool for legitimizing counter-terrorism strategies.
