Description
Book SynopsisThe Routledge History of Italian Americans weaves a narrative of the trials and triumphs of one of the nationâs largest ethnic groups. This history, comprising original essays by leading scholars and critics, addresses themes that include the Columbian legacy, immigration, the labor movement, discrimination, anarchism, Fascism, World War II patriotism, assimilation, gender identity and popular culture. This landmark volume offers a clear and accessible overview of work in the growing academic field of Italian American Studies. Rich illustrations bring the story to life, drawing out the aspects of Italian American history and culture that make this ethnic group essential to the American experience.
Trade ReviewWinner of the Italy-USA Fulbright Commission’s 75th anniversary prize
"A marvelous history of people fundamental to the American mosaic, a history that is thoughtful, honest, passionate, and right for our times. The Routledge History of Italian Americans traces Italian immigrants from a newly unified nation that could not hold its people to thoroughly integrated Americans at all levels of society. It’s essential for understanding Americans in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."
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Nell Irvin Painter, Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University and author of The History of White People
"Wide-ranging, with chapters that cover 500 years of history while addressing everything from politics, economy, culture, race, class, and gender to work, radicalism, religion, residence and everyday life, The Routledge History of Italian Americans belongs on the shelf of every scholar of Italian America and in every library serving Italian-Americans. Specialists will find enough of the latest research, written by prominent scholars, to satisfy their very specific needs while newcomers to the topic can gain from the contributors’ obvious awareness of the needs of general readers in search of ‘the big picture.’ "
"The Routledge History of ltalian Americans is an important guide to Italian American life, identity, and culture for a new millennium."
- Maddalena Marinari, Gustavus Adolphus College
Table of ContentsIntroduction:
A New History for a New Millennium
William J. Connell
Part I - Explorations and Foundations
1) Italians in the Early Atlantic World
William J. Connell
2) From the Pilgrim Fathers to the Founding Fathers: Italy and America
Edoardo Tortarolo
3) When They Were Few: Italians in America, 1800-1850
John Paul Russo
4) America’s Garibaldi: The United States and Italian Unification
Don H. Doyle
5) Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy in Nineteenth-Century America
Dennis Looney
Part II - The Great Migration and Creating Little Italies
6) Why Italians Left Italy: The Physics and Politics of Migration, 1870-1920
Maddalena Tirabassi
7) The Silence of the Atlantians: Contact, Conflict, Consolidation (1880-1913)
Peter Carravetta
8) The Little Italies of the Early 1900s: From the Reports of Amy Bernardy
Maddalena Tirabassi
9) Interpreting Little Italies: Ethnicity as an Accident of GeographyMaria Susanna Garroni
10) Culture and Identity on the Table: Italian American Food as Social History
Simone Cinotto
11) Italian Americans and Their Religious Experience
Richard N. Juliani
12) Italian Americans and Race During the Era of Mass Immigration
Peter G. Vellon
13) Discrimination, Prejudice and Italian American History
Salvatore J. LaGumina
14) The Languages of Italian Americans
Nancy C. Carnevale
15) Italian American Book Publishing and Book Selling
James J. Periconi
16) From Margins to Vanguard to Mainstream: Italian Americans and the Labor Movement
Marcella Bencivenni
17) The Sacco and Vanzetti Case and the Psychology of Political Violence
Michael Topp
18) A Diary in America and a Death in Rome Francesco Durante
Part III - Becoming American and Contesting America
19) The Bumpy Road Toward Political Incorporation, 1920-1984
Stefano Luconi
20) Italian Emigration, Remittances, and the Rise of Made-in-Italy
Mark I. Choate
21) Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Italian America
Stanislao G. Pugliese
22) World War II Changed Everything
Dominic Candeloro
23) Mothers and Daughters in Italian American Narratives
Mary Jo Bona
24) The Italian American Family and Transnational Circuits
JoAnne Ruvoli
25) Groovin’: A Riff on Italian Americans in Popular Music and Jazz
John Gennari
26) Italian Americans and the Cinema
Giuliana Muscio
27) Italian Americans and Television
Anthony Julian Tamburri
28) Italian Americans in Sport
Lawrence Baldassaro
29) Organized Crime and Italian Americans
Antonio Nicaso
Part IV - Postwar to Post-Ethnic?
30) Italian Americans and Assimilation
Richard Alba
31) Italian Americans in the Suburbs: Transplanting Ethnicity to the Crabgrass Frontier
Donald Tricarico
32) "What Ever Happened to Little Italy?"
Jerome Krase
33) Italian American Femininities
Ilaria Serra
34) Italian American Masculinities
Fred Gardaphé
35) Fuori per sempre: The Coming Out of Gay and Lesbian Italian Americans
George De Stefano
36) Immigration from Italy since the 1990s
Teresa Fiore
37) Contemporary Italian American IdentitiesRosemary Serra
38) The Orphanage: Encounters in Transnational Space
Robert Viscusi
Conclusion:
The Future of Our Past
Stanislao G. Pugliese
