The Italians comprised the first truly large wave of immigrants to arrive in Australia from Southern Europe after World War II and currently number around one million. Gianfranco Cresciani's authoritative account of their significant contributions to the development of Australian society through the twentieth century is comprehensive. As an authority on Italian life in Australia, Cresciani provides a definitive account of the Italo-Australian community entering the twenty-first century.

..".the essays assembled in this volume edited by my old friend and first student, Gianfranco Cresciani, and by Bruno Mascitelli of Swinburne University in Melbourne. All the essays are in some sense focused on what some contemporaries might think is 'old fashioned political history'; there is no mention of emotions, food or dance. The themes are significant. The research is serious. Archives have been probed and detail from them is made available that was not public before. Australia and Italy may be quite a long way apart in 2013 and the gap between them may be increasing. Nonetheless they share quite a bit of history. Important aspects of it are recovered in this collection of essays. It is as much a part of Australian history as is more familiar tales about 'resistance' on the frontier, the growth of mining or the spread of 'Meals on Wheels' across the nation." -- Professor Richard Bosworth