From the Venetian canals to the Vatican conclaves, New York Times correspondent Jason Horowitz takes you inside Italy, a country where history, culture, and change collide.

More than anywhere else, Italy holds a special place in our imagination as a destination adored for its history, landscapes, and spectacular cuisine. In The Italian Job, Jason Horowitz, Rome bureau chief for The New York Times for eight years, writes about this rich and fascinating culture as someone who knows and appreciates it. But he also tells the story of a nation that, along with its Tuscan sun and bottomless prosecco, now confronts the challenges of climate change, immigration, an aging population, and the rise of the radical right and often tumultuous politics, yet has forged a society built for survival and comity through it all.

In telling this story, Horowitz introduces us to an extraordinary range of characters from Italian history and the modern day, from popes to prime ministers to award-winning chefs, writers, and celebrities and the scientists trying to save Venice, each telling their stories about the country and its culture with wit and insight. Among them too is his Italian wife, Claudia, who first taught him about her country, and their two children, through whom he has developed a more intimate view of Italy, feeling more and more at home there and increasingly confident about its future.