The volume presents the results of a meeting during which local identities and forms of integration in the european development of the Alps between the XVIII and the XX Centuries in the different sectors of economy, both traditional and new (tourism) have been discussed. Based on the analysis of local study cases, the conclusions reveal that there is not much difference between the Alps and the rest of Europe. Anyway a certain alpine Weltanschauung (dualism: auto-centred dimension and attention to the local scale, on one side, and opening to the national and international scale on the other) has conditioned, sometime positively and sometime negatively, the development and it is still acting today.