This long, edited volume containing sixteen essays tries to address the question of legal responses to mass migration from the end of the nineteenth century until the post-Second World War period, an ambitious task. The editors, all Italian legal or legal history scholars, divide the volume into three sections covering 'Discourses', 'Policies and Institutions', and 'Legal Practices’; although the choice of location of the individual pieces is not always clear, especially in the case of those in sections 2 and 3. The chapters come from a 'collaborative research project on Legal History and Mass Migration' (xvi), focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the editors sought to take an interdisciplinary approach, most of the contributions are written by either legal scholars or legal historians. The main focus is Italy and the Italian diaspora, and most of the authors work in Italian universities.
Section I contains five chapters, beginning with Eliana Augusti's ‘From Vitoria to Kant: A Genealogy of ius migrandi’, an interesting philosophical-legal discussion about the concept of ius migrantis, traced through a series of philosophers down to the present. The author demonstrates command of the evolution of migration policy, and the essay is well conceptualised and clear in its explanation of the various authorities with which it engages, adding an interesting perspective on migration and migration law and rights. Chapter 2, by Giulio Abbate, on 'Emigration and Colonisation: The Debate in Italy at the End of the Nineteenth Century', tackles the issue of legal attitudes towards the relationship between emigration and colonisation, which initially focused upon emigration only taking place as a result of trade but gradually moved towards the idea that it could be linked to conquest because it would bring civilisation. Chapter 3, by Virginia Amorosi, on ‘Leaving Italy: Transoceanic Migration and Legal Discourse in the City of Napoli (1901-1910)’, despite its title and the fact that much of this essay focuses upon Naples, actually covers a wide range of discourse which falls under the broad description of 'legal', focusing not simply on Naples but also more broadly on Italy, including the concern about the loss of people as a result of emigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapter 4, by Francesco Rotondo, on 'The "Peculiar Paradox" of the Criminalisation of Italian Immigrants in Argentina in the Late Nineteenth Century' examines this process by focusing upon a series of individuals who concentrated up on perceived criminality and sickness against the background of a significant increase in the movement of people into Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century [...]
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DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671635
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