Defining a field, describing a world: Jane and Peter Schneider and the study of modern Italy

Abstract

Jane and Peter Schneider's career-long study of Sicily has created a lasting contribution to the understanding of both Sicilian and Italian social life. Their research into Sicily's historic economic under-development and its highly particular and interesting demographic transition, along with their chronicles of the rise of the Mafia and an opposing antimafia movement, provide a model for intelligent social science method as well as a humane and democratically committed scholarship.

Keywords:

• Jane Schneider
• Peter Schneider
• Italy
• Sicily
• anthropology

Notes

1 Though Fernand Braudel (1973 – 82) is the capstone work, Braudel (1972) contains the crucial notion of the world economy as an integrated market system governed by a shifting political and economic center.

2 Parentheses were placed in the text by Hornby.