The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism: Politics, Labor, and Culture

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Radicalism had a powerful but largely unacknowledged influence in the Italian-American community. This study brings together 16 selections that restore to Italian-American history the radical experience that has long remained suppressed, but that nevertheless helped shape both the Italian-American community and the American left. The detailed introduction by the volume editors interprets the overall history of Italian-American radicalism and offers extensive bibliographical references on the topic, which the volume editors organize into three sections: labor, politics, and culture. A concluding selection relates the radicalism of Italian Americans to that in other Italian immigrant communities. In the section on labor, Rudolph Vecoli, among others, traces the rise and decline of radicalism within the Italian-American working class, and Jennifer Guglielmo breaks new ground in uncovering the involvement of Italian American women in the radical movements. In politics, Paul Avrich unveils the violent reaction of anarchists in the United States to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, and Jackie DiSalvo identifies Father James Groppi as the most important white leader in the Civil Rights movement. On culture, Julia Lisella, Mary Jo Bono, and Edvige Guinta present pioneering interpretive studies on the work of Italian-American women in literature.

Reviews

.,.".Fills a void in the study of Italian-American history and culture by offering its reader a series of analytical and interpretive essays on radical Italian America. No one has yet to offer such a wide-spread panorama that has at its base the knowledge, intellectual expertise, and critical acumen of the who's who of Italian-American studies that this collection offers, a representative list of more than three generations of scholars working in the field....A required book for anyone's library, even those remotely interested in the subject."-Anthony Tamburri Professor of Italian, Florida Atlantic University
"From the thorough and incisive introduction by its editors, who provide nothing less than an indispensable contribution for anyone seeking to understand the Italian-American experience, this collection represents a long overdue correction of a great omission--the lost world of Italian American radicalism--that invaluably expands and enriches the field of Italian-American studies."-Richard N. Juliani Professor of Sociology, Villanova University
"[T]his book is at once stimulating and thought-provoking, and avoids easy simplifications of complex interpretative categories (such as Americanization): the immigrant radicals took symbols and hybridized them, combining the language and ideology of citizenship, rights and national self-determination with those of class-consciousness, solidarity, and internationalism. What is important, therefore--as Donna R. Gabaccia says in her conclusion--is to re-read the history of the Italian radical community not as "a world unto itself," but as "one important dimension of a global history of population movements out of Italy." The book offers a wealth of pointers in that direction, laying the foundations for a still-to-be-written exhaustive reconstruction of the history of the Italian-American workers' movement."-Science & Society
[A]n important contribution that not only outlines an aspect of the political life in Italian American communities but also casts further light on the life of immigrant minorities in the U.S. Left.-The Journal of American History
[T]his book is at once stimulating and thought-provoking, and avoids easy simplifications of complex interpretative categories (such as Americanization): the immigrant radicals took symbols and hybridized them, combining the language and ideology of citizenship, rights and national self-determination with those of class-consciousness, solidarity, and internationalism. What is important, therefore--as Donna R. Gabaccia says in her conclusion--is to re-read the history of the Italian radical community not as "a world unto itself," but as "one important dimension of a global history of population movements out of Italy." The book offers a wealth of pointers in that direction, laying the foundations for a still-to-be-written exhaustive reconstruction of the history of the Italian-American workers' movement.-Science & Society
[T]his is a commendable collection of essays, which takes up the concept of radical activity in impressively broad and compelling ways. It is a must for the shelves of anyone studying not only Italian American radicalism, but labor and the Left in the United States in general.-Journal of American Ethnic History
In The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism, Philip V. Cannistraro and Gerald Meyer have assembled a collection of essays by academics and independent scholars chronicling the struggles and visions, successes and failures, of this fiery lot of radicals and their many adherents who shook local companies and communities, and often the nation itself, to their foundations as they fought for social justice.-Unbound
These essays recover a forgotten aspect of the Italian immigrant communities in the US....The introduction, which is a broad interpretive overview of Italian American radicalism by the editors, is alone worth the book's price. While the radical heritage of Italian immigrants perhaps was never quite as "lost" as the editors claim, these essays will make it difficult to ignore. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.-Choice
"An important contribution that not only outlines an aspect of the political life in Italian American communities but also casts further light on the life of immigrant minorities in the U.S. Left."-The Journal of American History
"This is a commendable collection of essays, which takes up the concept of radical activity in impressively broad and compelling ways. It is a must for the shelves of anyone studying not only Italian American radicalism, but labor and the Left in the United States in general."-Journal of American Ethnic History
"In The Lost World of Italian American Radicalism, Philip V. Cannistraro and Gerald Meyer have assembled a collection of essays by academics and independent scholars chronicling the struggles and visions, successes and failures, of this fiery lot of radicals and their many adherents who shook local companies and communities, and often the nation itself, to their foundations as they fought for social justice."-Unbound
"[A]n important contribution that not only outlines an aspect of the political life in Italian American communities but also casts further light on the life of immigrant minorities in the U.S. Left."-The Journal of American History
"[T]his is a commendable collection of essays, which takes up the concept of radical activity in impressively broad and compelling ways. It is a must for the shelves of anyone studying not only Italian American radicalism, but labor and the Left in the United States in general."-Journal of American Ethnic History
"These essays recover a forgotten aspect of the Italian immigrant communities in the US....The introduction, which is a broad interpretive overview of Italian American radicalism by the editors, is alone worth the book's price. While the radical heritage of Italian immigrants perhaps was never quite as "lost" as the editors claim, these essays will make it difficult to ignore. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above."-Choice

Author Bio

PHILIP CANNISTRARO is Distinguished Professor of Italian American Studies at Queens College and the Graduate School, City University of New York. An authority on the Italian American experience and the history of modern Italy, he has written numerous books, including works on fascist cultural policy, a biography of Margherita Sarfatti, and Blackshirts in Little Italy. Cannistraro has also edited The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement and is coauthor of a major college textbook, The Western Perspective: A History of Civilization in the West. He is currently writing a biography of Benito Mussolini. GERALD MEYER is Professor Emeritus of History at Hostos Community College, City University of New York, and author of Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician, 1902-1954. He has also written more than 40 articles, reviews, and encyclopedia entries on subjects ranging from Italian American educator Leonard Covello, to the history of Little Italies, and aspects of the Italian American encounter with the American Left. Meyer lectures widely and is an editor of Science & Society and The Italian American Review. He is currently working on a history of the American Labor Party.