Italy's Many Diasporas

Italy's residents are a migratory people. Since 1800 well over 27 million left home, but over half also returned home again. As cosmopolitans, exiles, and 'workers of the world' they transformed their homeland and many of the countries where they worked or settled abroad. But did they form a diaspora? Migrants maintained firm ties to native villages, cities and families. Few felt much loyalty to a larger nation of Italians. Rather than form a 'nation unbound,' the transnational lives of Ita...