Read "The Greatest Story in the World, Period 2" by Horace G. Hutchinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In every part of the Western world we see the leading nations / settling down at the beginning of the sixteenth century within / boundaries nearly the same as those which define them at the / beginning of the twentieth. And for the most part those boundaries / remain, in spite of the upheaval caused by the Great War.
There is, however, one notable exception, namely Italy. The very / idea of a united Italy does not seem to have been in men's minds / until later. The country which we now know by that name was then, as / we have seen, divided between five principal States, Milan, Venice, / Florence, the Papal State, and Naples with Sicily.