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

Subjects:

• History » American History -- 1900 to 1945
• Popular Culture » American Studies
• Political Science » American Politics/Government

Reviews:

• 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 September 2004
• [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 2007
• 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 2006
• [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 Winter 2005
• [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 March 2005

• Endorsement From Richard N. Juliani
  Professor of Sociology, Villanova 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.
• Endorsement From Anthony Tamburri
  Professor of Italian, Florida Atlantic University: ....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.

Table of Contents:

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Italian American Radicalism: An Interpretive History by Philip V. Cannistraro and Gerald Meyer
• Labor
• The Making and Un-Making of an Italian Working Class in the United States, 1915-1945, by Rudolf J. Vecoli
• War Among the Anarchists: The Galleanisti's Campaign Against Carlo Tresca by Nunzio Pernicone
• Italian Workers on the Waterfront: The New York Harbor Strikes of 1907 and 1919 by Calvin Winslow
• Donne Ribelli: Recovering the History of Italian Women's Radicalism in the United States by Jennifer Guglielmo
• From Working Class Radicalism to Cold-War Anti-Communism: The Case of the Italian Locals of the ILGWU by Charles Zappia
• Politics
• Sacco and Vanzetti's Revenge by Paul Avrich
• No God, No Master: Italian Anarchists and the Individual Workers of the World by Salvatore Salerno
• Italian Radicals and Union Activists in San Francisco, 1900-1920, by Paola A. Sensi-Isolani
• Italian Americans and the American Communist Party by Gerald Meyer
• Father James Groppi: The Militant Humility of a Civil Rights Activist by Jackie Di Salvo
• Mario Savio: Resurrecting an Italian American Radical by Gil Fagiani
• Culture
• The Radical World of Ybor City, Florida by Gary R. Mormino
• Follow the Red Brick Road: Recovering Radical Traditions of Italian American Writers by Fred Gardaphe
• Behind the Mask: Signs Radicalism in the Work of Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni by Julia Lisella
• Rooted to Family: Italian American Women's Radical Novels by Mary Jo Bona
• Where They Come From: Italian American Women Writers as Public Intellectuals by Edvige Giunta
• Conclusion: Italian American Radicalism in Global Perspective by Donna R. Gabaccia