Italian Women in Basilicata: Staying Behind but Moving Forward during the Age of Mass Emigration, 1876–1914 by Victoria Calabrese, Lanham, Lexington Books, 2022, 212 pp., $95.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-7936-0778-2

Abstract

Victoria Calabrese ’ s Italian Women in Basilicata: Staying Behind but Moving Forward during the Age of Mass Emigration, 1876 – 1914 offers a new perspective on the region of Basilicata during the great wave of emigration from Italy. Studies on migration have tended to focus on migrants themselves (often men) and their impact on their destinations, and have only more recently started to consider migration as a non-linear phenomenon that needs to include connections and continuity. In this context, Calabrese ’ s book breaks new ground and approaches migration from a long-neglected perspective: the everyday struggle for a living for the women and the families left behind. Calabrese focuses on Basilicata, countering the narrative that has seen it perceived by outsiders as ‘ dark, unknown and desolate ’ , and arguing instead that ‘ there were … connections with the outside world, despite physical limitations ’ (p. xxiv). The