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Review Of Giuseppe Mazzini's Document 'The Duties Of Man'

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Giuseppe Mazzini is a nationalist that some would argue is a liberal nationalist but who some other would argue is a romantic nationalist. In his document titled “The Duties of Man” he makes many solid points for both sides and to say that he is strictly a liberal or romantic nationalist seems unfair to him in my opinion. His points are comparable to other well-known nationalists such as Abbé Sieyés and Alexie Stepanovich Khomyakov. The thing that stood out to me the most when I first began reading Mazzini’s document was that he has an extremely strong sense of nationalism and believes that the nation of Italy is what holds the Italian people together. For example “Narratives about the ‘imagined community’ of modern nations rely constantly …show more content…

In “The Duties of Man” Mazzini often speaks about the French document “Declaration of the Rights of Man” and quite honestly speaks extremely negatively about it. He thinks that their document has good intentions but in the end leaves quite a few loopholes that could end tragically for the citizens of France. My favorite quote from Mazzini’s document was “... the condition of the people has not improved; rather it has grown and grows worse in nearly every country…” (Mazzini 87) for the reason that it speaks volumes to me. This was a brilliant way for him to exhibit his liberal nationalism in the way that he believes in equality for each and every person, and he recognizes that France failed to abide by this in their attempt. In Sieyés document “What is the Third Estate” he speaks greatly about the same subject and says the same things that Mazzini is trying to say but he says it from the eyes of an actual Frenchman. He explains how there should be equality for every member of the nation of France and not just the upper class, most importantly when he states “Detailed analysis is not necessary to show that the Third Estate makes up 19/20ths of their number… all the work that the privileged order refuses to perform” (Sieyés 65). The third estate made up such a large majority of the French population and yet there was no respect for the hard work that they put in every day to make sure that their family is fed and stays alive. Mazzini and Sieyés both seem to poke fun at the fact that the rich portion of the French population seems to think that everyone is being treated fairly, before and after “Declaration of the Rights of

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