BAKUNIN AND THE ITALIANS.  By T. R. Ravindranathan.  Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's 
University Press, 1988.  x, 332 pp.  *C?$35.95, cloth; $...., paper.*

Italy figured prominently in Bakunin's life after his escape from Siberia in 1861.  He lived 
in Florence and Naples for four years in the mid-1860s and maintained relations with Italy 
until his death in 1876.  This monograph is the first in any language to focus exclusively on 
Bakunin's activity in Italy for this entire period.  On this subject it supersedes Rosselli's 
<EM>Mazzini e Bakunin</EM> and Romano's <EM>Storia del movimento socialista in Italia</EM>, 
showing 
the latter 
wrong on a good number of important points.

The book is chronological.  Early chapters deal with Bakunin's evolution through the early 
1860s and his life in Florence and Naples.  The author then discusses Bakunin's Naples period 
in greater detail and demonstrates his crucial role in launching the First International in 
Italy.  Ravindranathan examines the Paris Commune's influence in Italy, recounts the rise of 
"Bakuninism" there, traces the Italian attitude toward the split in the International, 
describes the "insurrectionary fever" of 1873-74, and analyzes the decline of Bakunin's