Book Presentation: “When Our History Begins” by Federico Rampini, Chief New York Correspondent for Italy’s La Repubblica Newspaper
Wednesday, February 20, 2019 at 6pm
Italian Cultural Institute
500 N Michigan Ave, Suite 1450
Renowned Italian journalist Federico Rampini will present his latest book, “When Our History Begins. The Great Turning Points of the Past that Shaped the World We Live in Today,” (Quando inizia la nostra storia. Le grandi svolte del passato che hanno disegnato il mondo in cui viviamo” (Mondadori, 2018). Copies of the Italian edition of the book will be available for sale. A booksigning will follow.
History is the teacher of life: it is urgent to rediscover it as a guide. What links the invention of the printing press (Gutenberg) in 1450, the Protestant Reformation of Luther and the first experiment of globalization that were the great naval explorations? Is it possible to compare Facebook or Instagram to other communication revolutions? What distance is there between that age of chaos we call the Renaissance, its Savonarola, and today’s populisms? Following upon the success of his book “The Red Lines”, (Mondadori, 2017) in which he guided readers in deciphering the current world using maps, Rampini applies the same method to history, playing with some key dates to shed light on the surprising links between past epochal events and our present.
Federico Rampini has been the chief correspondent from New York City for one of Italy’s major national newspapers, La Repubblica, since 2009, after a five-year stint in Beijing, where he had been dispatched to open La Repubblica’s China bureau. Prior to that, from 2000 to 2004, he lived in San Francisco, where he covered the first Internet revolution, the so-called New Economy.
Born in Genoa, Rampini moved to Bruxelles with his family at the age of two. He returned to Italy in his late teens, and started a prolific journalistic career, which would eventually take him around the world, covering important international events. In his role as a correspondent from the U.S., he has covered several presidential elections and has followed U.S. presidents on their trips abroad, as a reporter accredited for the White House. Rampini is also an acclaimed speaker, the author of more than 20 books, and a theater performer (his latest show is “Trump Blues”).
Free and open to the public.