PANE E CANNONI
Saturday, April 11, 2026 | 4:30 PM
Italian Cultural Institute, 710 Sansome St, San Francisco
On the occasion of La Piazza – San Francisco Italian Literary Festival, the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco, in collaboration with the cultural association Librai in corso, presents:
Pane e cannoni
Mondadori, 2025
by Federico Rampini
An event hosted at the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco, featuring journalist and writer Federico Rampini, in conversation with Mauro Aprile Zanetti.
Presentation in English
Event open to the public | Registration required
Today, war is waged through the economy. The neologism geo‑economics has become the watchword of our time: commercial, technological, and financial competition merges with military doctrine. With the optimistic vision of globalization gone, nations now incorporate security concerns into their economic policies. Economic sanctions and customs barriers, embargoes on rare earths, industrial dirigisme and state aid to raise “national champions”: every blow is allowed, no one believes in the free market anymore, and generals enter the boards of multinational corporations as consultants. The production of new‑generation weapons itself has become a vital investment for a healthy economy, one capable of defending citizens and companies from “grey wars,” hybrid conflicts, cyberattacks, and debilitating sabotage.
Federico Rampini returns to the heart of current affairs with an essay that weaves together political and economic analysis, illuminating—through his sharp and distinctive perspective—the central knot of our era. Both a geopolitical manual and a guide to understanding global scenarios, this book ranges from America to China, from Europe to Russia, explaining the new balances of power, technological wars, and the race for supremacy among the superpowers that seek to “own” the future.
FEDERICO RAMPINI
Federico Rampini, columnist for Corriere della Sera, has served as deputy editor of Il Sole 24 Ore and as a correspondent for la Repubblica in Paris, Brussels, San Francisco, Beijing, and New York. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an American think tank on international relations. As a geopolitics expert, he is a public speaker for The European House – Ambrosetti. He has published more than thirty successful essays, many translated into other languages. Among his most recent works are Western Suicide (Mondadori 2022), The African Hope (Mondadori 2023), Thank You, West! (Mondadori 2024), and The Lesson of Japan (Mondadori 2025). Together with his son Jacopo, an actor, he performs on stage in the contemporary‑issues show What Is America For, and he co‑authored the novel The Game of Power (Mondadori 2025). He has created for La7 the television program Inchieste in movimento and for Mediaset the geopolitical series Risiko. Le sfide di potere.
MAURO APRILE ZANETTI
Mauro Aprile Zanetti (MAZ) is a cultural strategist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, working at the intersection of culture, philanthropy, and technology. He serves as Global Brand and Philanthropy Strategist for the Manetti Shrem Foundation and Chief Business Evangelist at Cloud4Wi. An interdisciplinary author, MAZ has written on figures such as Federico Fellini, Giorgio Morandi, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. His works include La Natura Morta de La Dolce Vita—A Mysterious Morandi in the Matrix of Fellini’s Vision (2008) and The Joy, Carnations and Siesta (2003). The last collaborator of Ferlinghetti on Little Boy(Doubleday, 2019), MAZ is active in California’s cultural landscape and serves as a liaison for Italy’s cultural institutions in the United States while leading international programs at the Manetti Shrem Foundation.