179-3-817
All countries argue about their history. America’s recent commemoration of the 150th anniversary of its civil war saw plenty of conflict between nostalgics for the old South, with all its carbuncles, and fans of Abraham Lincoln. But it is hard to find anybody in America who thinks that the states should never have been united. Italy is different. Plenty of people feel that the regions making up the country were too distinct to be squeezed into a single nation and that, as a result, Italy has shallow roots. According to this line of thinking, the lack of consent to the national project has resulted in weak institutions and dysfunctional government. Manlio Graziano’s “The Failure of Italian Nationhood” and David Gilmour’s “The Pursuit of Italy”, the two most serious attempts to grapple with Italy’s first 150 years, both take this view. In political terms, the rise and rise of the separatist Northern League over the past 15 years, to a point where it now occupies key ministries in Rome, underlines the power of this idea.
One reason why the past seems to have an unusually strong hold over the present in Italy is that the country’s long-term problems seem impervious to changes of party, government or constitution.

A. 어휘
conflict 갈등. nostalgics 憧憬(동경)하는 사람, 鄕愁病(향수병)에 걸린 사람.
carbuncles 紅玉(홍옥)<귀중한 것들>, 여드름, 뾰루지.
making up 구성하고 있는. distinct 별개의, 다른, 명확한.
squeeze 압착하다, 짜내다. shallow 얕은. dysfunctional 기능장애의.
grapple 파악하다. separatist 분리주의자. underlines 明示(명시)하다.
impervious 무감각한, 통하지 않는, 스며들지 않는, 鈍感(둔감)한.