On the Other Shore

On the Other Shore explores the social history of Italian communities in South America and the transnational networks in which they were situated during and after World War I. From 1915 to 1921 Italy’s conflict against Austria-Hungary and its aftermath shook Italian immigrants and their children in the metropolitan areas of Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and São Paulo. The war led portions of these communities to mobilize resources—patriotic support, young men who could enlist in the Italian army, goods like wool from Argentina and limes from Brazil, and lots of money—to support Italy in the face of “total war.” Yet other portions of these communities simultaneously organized a strident movement against the war, inspired especially by anarchism and revolutionary socialism. Both of these factions sought to extend their influence and ambitions into the immediate postwar period.

On the Other Shore demonstrates patterns of social cohesion and division within the Italian communities of South America; reconstructs varying transatlantic and inter-American networks of interaction, exchange, and mobility in an “Italian Atlantic”; interrogates how authorities in Italy viewed their South American “colonies”; and uncovers ways that Italians in Latin America balanced and blended relationships and loyalties to their countries of residence and origin. On the Other Shore’s position at the intersection of Latin American history, Atlantic history, and the histories of World War I and Italian immigration thereby engages with and informs each of these subject areas in distinctive ways.