<P> <i>The Cinema of Italy</i>, a new addition to the <i>24 Frames</i> series, looks at the historical and aesthetic connections of some of Italy's most important films with both Italian and Western film culture. Spanning almost a century of film productions and organised chronologically, the volume examines recurring thematic and stylistic features. Together with the crucial lessons of such neorealist masterpieces as Rossellini's <i>Paisan and De Sica's Bicycle Thieves,</i> The Cinema of Italy looks at how Italian cinema has dealt - before and since neorealism - with the nation's past and present history (1860, Senso, The Conformist, Lamerica), with the so-called Southern question (Assunta Spina, Salvatore Giuliano, Padre Padrone), as well as with modern configurations of work-life and gender relationships through the films of Olmi, Pasolini, Antonioni, Cavani and Wertmüller. The Cinema of Italy also considers the very personal, but never politically apathetic works of Fellini, Ferreri and Moretti and reserves a special attention to those film-makers (Argento and Leone) whose cinema directly addresses such international film genres as horror and western.</P>