[AlbertCory]

A different take from a non-Italian. I'm curious what actual Italians think of this:

I'm reading a book on how Spain gained and lost a world empire (I'd had it on my shelf forever and never read it):

https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Spain-Became-World-1492-1763/d...

It said that many northern Italians believe that a big reason the Mafia is so dominant in southern Italy and Sicily is that it was ruled (loosely) by Spain a long time ago. True?

[skrtskrt]

The South being considered an actual part of Italy is a pretty new concept and not completely accepted by either the south or the north.

The north is sophisticated, cosmopolitan, industrialized, and has tons of arable farmland and just generally money running through it. Culturally it's more French / white European.

The south has very little arable land, it is rocky and hilly. It does not lend itself well to large-scale agriculture. It was largely ruled in a feudal system for a very very long time, which then collapsed into the peasant families each being given land ownership of plots too small to sustain a family.

It has also been a target of conquering by Greeks, Ottoman Turks, and many many many more cultures due to its critical location for shipping lanes - so it's been sort "ran over" too many times to count.

The fact that the real power structure has turned over so many times has led to lots of very very localized, unofficial power structures that represent sort of local "fiefdoms" which exist outside of the modern governmental structures. Subsequently, it has built its own mythology of being "unconquerable" or "ungovernable" and not really a part of "Italy" - where "Italy" is seen as an outside power which builds into the mythology that helps the mafioso gain and retain control.

Edit: for very enjoyable (and highly regarded) novel that gets at the mafioso / Southern mythology about this, I highly recommend Black Souls.

[frankohn]

I agree with your analysis but Greek weren't merely conqueror, they are part of Sicily because they established themselves there and remained. Large part of Catania and Syracuse are of Greek ascent.

About the arable land, I don't know, Sicily is extremely fertile in general and there also some large plains as well like in Palermo. Sicily was extremely rich and prosper during the Normad period and for the Arabs who came before it was nothing short than a paradise.

[skrtskrt]

Sicily is fertile, but for example much of Calabria is very much not - too rocky/mountainous. The issue is not that there's no fertile land, but the fertile land relative to the population is not a lot in terms of just sustaining the South subsisting on its own, and it certainly doesn't have enough extra fertile land to develop as much agricultural export from the region as the north has.

And it's gotten much much worse in recent years with climate change the heat and drought is getting very serious in the south.

[HPsquared]

Sounds a bit like Afghanistan.

[nextos]

Spain does not have any mafia-like structures. Modern mafia emerged in Sicily long after Spain (actually Aragon) were gone, probably because of many different factors.

One should not forget the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was quite wealthy and advanced at the time of the Italian Reunification, but crumbled shortly afterwards.

There was a big wealth transfer South to North. Nonetheless, it's still a lovely place.

[frankohn]

I am from Sicily, near Palermo. In my humble opinion the main reason of emergency of Mafia was injustice and bad government, most prominently from Bourbon family but also from previous kingdoms. When there is injustice and bad government you learn to despise the authorities and the laws and your priority is the survival.

Sicily was great when it was governed by the Normands but that didn't last for a long time.

I live now in Switzerland and I am studying its history. It seems one of the reason of Switzerland prosperity and order was they never got a prince or a king but cities were autonomously governing themselves.