Robert Lumley is Professor of Italian Cultural History at University College London. He studied modern history at the University of Oxford and was a researcher at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. His publications include States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978 (1990) and Arte Povera (2004), as well as the edited volumes The Museum Time-Machine (1987) and Italian Cityscapes: Culture and Urban Change in Contemporary Italy (with John Foot, 2004).