Annotated Bibliography - p. 2
 
Amfitheatrof, Erik. The Children of Columbus: An Informal History of the Italians in the New World.  Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973.
 
Amfitheatrof’s book describes the first Italian explorers who came to the Americas and it presents a historical account of rural Italy. His book is also about Italian-Americans both unassuming and distinguished, whose experience is key in the development of the United States. This work dispels the many  Italian-American stereotypes that exist in our nation.
 
Balboni, Alan Richard.  Beyond the Mafia: Italian Americans and the Development of Las Vegas.  Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1996.
 
Balboni’s work describes how Italian-Americans who were not involved in illegal operations contributed to the development of Las Vegas from a desert town into a well-known resort city. This book provides a detailed explanation of the Italian-American experience in a wide range of civic, professional and business activities.
 
Banfield, Edward, C.  The Moral Basis of a Backward Society.  New York: The Free Press, 1958.
 
Banfield’s book The Moral Basis of a Backward Society describes a Southern Italian town in Southern Italy with emphasis on its political behavior.  It depicts the social life of this town lacking in moral sanctions outside those of the immediate family. The Southern Italians were shown to be reluctant to cooperation and to any kind of continuing relationship beyond the nuclear family. To explain this behavior, Banfield argues that the people from Southern Italy behave at all times as if they were following a rule that he called amoral familism: “Maximize the material, short-run advantage of the nuclear family, assume that all others will do likewise.”
 
Barzini, Luigi, The Italians, New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1964.
 
Barzini’s book describes the manners, morals and behavior of the Italian people. In particular, the work examines the power of the Italian family. It points out the importance to protect, improve, honor and fear the family  by the employment of whatever necessary methods.
 
Battistella, Graziano (editor).  Italian Americans in the 80s: A Sociodemographic Profile. Staten Island, NY: Center for Migration Studies, 1989.
 
Battistella’s volume presents a set of unpublished data on Italian Americans that was prepared by the United States Bureau of the Census. This book contains works dealing with the Italian immigrants to the United States in the 1970s and 80s, demographic and cultural aspects of Italian-Americans, education, family life and economic characteristics of Italian-Americans in the 1980s.
 
Bell, Rudolph, B., Fate and Honor, Family and Village: Demographic and Cultural Change in Rural Italy Since 1800, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
 
Bell analyzes the extreme poverty and deprivation that exist in Calabria, Italy. He describes the unhappy physical and moral state known as la miseria (the misery) of the peasants in Southern Italy.
 
Belliotti, Raymond, A., Seeking Identity: Individualism versus Community in an Ethnic Context, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.
 
Belliotti’s volume argues that the Italian-Americans of the 1990s have continued to view themselves as a particular ethnic group, still separate to some degree from mainstream American culture.  The book maintains that anti-Italian bias and stereotypes still prevent today’s Italian-Americans from being fully assimilated to American culture.
 
Biagiotti, Aldo, P.  Impact: The Historical Account of the Italian Immigrants of Ridgefield, Connecticut.  Ridgefield, CT: Romald Press, 1990.
 
Biagiotti’s book explains the lives of Italian immigrants in Ridgefield, Connecticut from the early 1900s to the 1940s. This work describes these immigrants’ experiences during the prohibition era, the Great Depression and World War II.  It also examines the discrimination against the Italian immigrants of Ridgefield and the mutual aid society, nicknames and sayings of this group.
 
Bianco, Carla, The Two Rosetos, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974.
 
Bianco’s book describes the trials and tribulations of Italian immigrants from Roseto Valfortore (a village in Foggia, Apulia) in Roseto, Pennsylvania. This work examines the manner in which the traditional life firmly established in Italy was triumphantly transferred and continued in the United States. Traditional attitudes toward the family, government and religion were maintained and grew in Pennsylvania.
  
Block, Anton.  The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960. 
 
Prospect Heights, IL:Waveland Press, 1971. Block’s study on the Mafia in Sicily indicates that it was never a highly structured criminal conspiracy. This work shows that the Mafia in Sicily was a mediator and fractional operation of mercenaries arranging local subjugation of the peasantry for absentee landlords.
 
 
Bohme, Frederick G.  A History of the Italians in New Mexico.  New York: Arno Press, 1975. 
 
Bohme’s work provides a description of the Italian American experience in New Mexico from 1850 to 1950.  The book discusses the importance of the Italian settlers as mediators between the Anglo-Saxon and Hispanic culture in New Mexico.
 
Briggs, John Walker, An Italian Passage: Immigrants to Three American Cities 1870-1930, New Haven: Yale University, 1978.
 
Briggs’ book examines the Italian communities in Utica and Rochester, New York and in Kansas City, Missouri during the migration period of 1880 to 1920 to America. It indicates that the Italian immigrants’ ideas concerning self-help, group organization, social mobility, and the economic value of education which was developed in Southern Italy had become very useful to them in America. This work points out that once the Italians had decided to stay in America and not return to Italy after having accumulated some money, they began achieving social and economic success in the United States while maintaining their cultural traditions.  
 
Bruhn, John, G. and Wolf, Stewart, The Roseto Story: An Anatomy of Health, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1979.
 
Bruhn and Wolf’s study investigates the Italian community of Roseto, Pennsylvania. The book’s findings indicate that a close connection to an Italian-American ethnic way of life has been of great benefit to the physical and mental health of the people of Roseto.
 
Buhle, Paul and Georgakas, Dan. (editors).   The Immigrant Left in the United States. Albany: State University Press, 1997.
 
Buhle and Georgakas’ work includes essays on  Mexican-, German-, Jewish-,Italian-, Polish-, Ukrainian-, Greek-, Haitian-, Arab- and Asian-Americans. These essays provide information on the roles the Left (that is, radical politics) has played among these ethnic groups.
Next page  

Previous page