The book is available by order to the Publisher:

European Press Academic Publishing
Via Valle Bantini, 4 Loc. Querce
50050 Fucecchio FIRENZE (Italy)
Fax +39-0571-296 335
orders@e-p-a-p.com
www.e-p-a-p.com

“As a historian, I am particularly pleased to see how well the study incorporates historical insights. Without the historical dimension showing the gradual development of migratory patterns, it would be impossible to explain the vitality of the migratory current that the author takes into account” – Professor Roland Sarti, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

“Dr Adriano Boncompagni’s book is a serious work of scholarship that makes a substantial and original contribution to the study of the migration of Italians to Australia. No similar study has been attempted before” – Associate Professor Desmond O’Connor, The Flinders University of South Australia

“This work is possibly unique in the Australian migration literature in its focus on both the are of origin in Tuscany, and on the destination area in Australia. I know of no other such study in an Australian context which has attempted such a huge task” – Associate Professor James Forrest, Macquarie University, Australia

This book analyses the historical and socio-economic factors of Tuscany, which have been conducive to overseas migration. It studies the patterns of geographical and occupational distribution of Tuscan migrants in Western Australia, as well as their social adjustment to the host country.

The World is just like a village takes into account the century-long tradition of internal and overseas migration of Central Italian people, which permitted forms of ‘cosmopolitanism’ and allowed them to feel comfortable and secure whatever was their destination as migrants. Since the turn of the twentieth century, and more markedly from the 1920s, migrants from Tuscany chose Australia as one of their overseas destinations, often joining friends and relatives who had previously acted as ‘pioneers’. The sense of security that a ‘little Tuscany’ overseas could offer, allowed many to transplant the century-long tradition of temporary migration of the Tuscan Apennine communities into the Australian working and residential environment.

The strength of the historical legacy of migrants from Tuscany in Western Australia in particular is shown by the specific residential and occupational mobility among Tuscan migrants, which has prevailed over Australia’s major migration policies of the twentieth century. The relationship between the historical, economic and social background of migrants and their adjustment to the Australian residential, occupational and social milieu is concluded to be pivotal to an understanding of the specific migratory patterns of this Italian regional group, and as a possible interdisciplinary tool of analysis of other ethnic groups within multicultural Australia.

Boncompagni has devoted five years of research-combining through public archives, published literature, files of private organizations, and direct interviews to recapturing the creation of a community. He describes such factors as regional origins, migration patterns, population growth and the formation of communal institutions. By presenting a meticulously detailed profile of the Tuscan immigrant experience through its stages of settlement in Australia, it captures a piece of migration history that has been too long ignored.

Adriano Boncompagni holds a Ph.D. in Italian migration studies, gained at the Perth’s University of Western Australia, and is currently academic director of the Tosca Institute of Florence (Italy), and lecturer of History of Modern Italy at the American study-abroad program of the Umbra Institute of Perugia (Italy).

He is the author of Tuscan Grand Tour: Perception of Tuscany by the British Grand Tourists of the XIXth cent, Cet, Firenze, 1998 (in Italian)