UNICO National Supports Major New Book on Italian American History

With chapters written by three dozen nationally and internationally renowned scholars, this monumental new history of Italian Americans is scheduled for publication next year. 

The editors have decided to arrange and organize the essays into the following categories: “Explorations and Foundations,” “Mass Immigration and Creating Little Italies,” “Becoming American/Contesting America,” “Postwar to Post-Ethnic?”  The volume will include a visual essay “Italian Americans in Action,” that will present over 100 years of Italian American culture in historical photos.  The book promises to be the standard history and reference book for scholars, students and the general public for the next generation. 

UNICO National is a major Italian American organization. Its mission is:  “To promote and enhance the Image of Italian Americans; for members to be of service to the community; to promote Italian heritage and culture; to promote, support and assist charitable, scientific, cultural, educational, and literary projects; to promote members’ interest in public welfare; and, to cooperate with others in civic, social and cultural development.” See their website at www.unico.org

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William J. Connell is professor of history and holder of the Joseph M. and Geraldine C. La Motta Chair in Italian Studies at Seton Hall University, where he was Founding Director of the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute.  A specialist in Renaissance and Early Modern Italy, his books include La città dei crucci: fazioni e clientele in uno stato repubblicano del ʼ400; a major translation of Machiavelli’s Prince; Sacrilege and Redemption in Renaissance Florence (with G. Constable); and Anti-Italianism: Essays on a Prejudice (ed. with Fred Gardaphé).  He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Harvard/I Tatti Fellow, and a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.  He is working on a new book titled Machiavelli’s Utopia. 

Stanislao Pugliese is professor of modern European history and, the Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies at Hofstra University. A specialist on the Italian anti-fascist Resistance and Italian Jews, Dr. Pugliese is the author, editor or translator of a dozen books on Italian and Italian American history, including Carlo Rosselli: Socialist Heretic and Antifascist Exile (1999); and Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone. Professor Pugliese is currently working on a new book tentatively titled Dancing on a Volcano in Naples: Scenes from the Siren City.