I percorsi rizomatici di Franco Ramella

The reprinting of Franco Ramella’s Terra e telai is an opportunity for scholars to reflect on the innovative nature of his research, both in terms of the research areas he explored and put into focus, and for his overall interpretation of a specific “transition” to a centralised industry employing modern machines. Ramella’s analysis considered this transition in relation to its links with agricultural and kinship systems. It seemed equally important to reflect on “what is alive and what is dead” in his reading, and the multiple influences it had. We have taken into account both his subsequent interests in the field of migrants and migration, the changes that have taken place over the past forty years in studies on the dynamics of 19th-century industrialisation and, more generally, in the way of understanding and practicing Economic and Social history.