‘The Italians,’ by John Hooper – NYTimes.com

Italy v Switzerland. “One of the epigraphs John Hooper uses to introduce the various chapters in his new book, “The Italians,” is a bit of dialogue from the 1949 film “The Third Man.” In it, Harry Lime compares the tumultuous 30 years of Borgia rule in Italy, which produced the Renaissance and some of its greatest artists, to the 500 years of democracy and peace in Switzerland, which, he claims, produced only the cuckoo clock.”