The Risorgimento, the time of the establishment of the nation state, has always had a special meaning in the history of Italy. In particular, German-language research not only on the history of Italy but also on the transnational and comparative history of the founding of nation states has long lacked an up-to-date and well-founded overview of the history of the Risorgimento. Gabriele Clemens is now presenting one of these. It begins before the French Revolution, still in the Ancien Rgime, around 1770, and ends in 1870 with the conquest of Rome by the troops of the still young nation-state, thus examining a good century of Italian history. Their balanced and easily legible presentation combines the perspective of political cultural history with an economic and social-historical approach and at the same time sets new accents, for example with regard to the role of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. The long-claimed mobilization of the masses through art, music and literature and also the meaning of Garibaldi, who has become a myth, are fundamentally questioned and the path to the nation-state is described as the work of an elite that supports the state and acts consistently in transnational networks.