Rome and the world - the world in Rome

Dutch cultural historian Peter Rietbergen turns to the politics of international culture in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Rome. Specifically, he addresses the question why and how, since the foundation of the Italian state in 1861, Rome has sought to retain and, indeed, even enlarge its traditional role as the 'mother town' of the culture of mankind, and, also, why and how so many of the world's nations have established their own cultural presence there.