In the summer of 1849 Giuseppe Garibaldi, the legendary hero of guerrilla wars and future architect of a united Italy, was finally forced to concede defeat to the French in his defense of a revolutionary Roman republic. But determined to turn defeat into moral victory, he set out from Rome with 4, 000 men one July evening to continue the struggle for national independence. Hounded by both French and Austrian armies, he crossed the Italian Apennines and after endless skirmishes and adventures arrived in Ravenna a month later with just 250 survivors.
Tim Parks, the author of four best-selling accounts of Italian life, retraced Garibaldi's steps in the summer of 2019. In The Hero's Way he delivers a superb travelogue that combines a memorable portrait of Garibaldi and the country before unification with Parks's own fine observations of contemporary Italian people, politics, customs, food, and landscape.