This book takes an historical approach to the immigrant experience as well as describing why immigrants left Italy, how they were changed by American culture, how they fared, and where they settled. After examining the immigrants' role within the political, economic, and cultural life of the United States, the book discusses their current attitudes, problems of the second generation, and recent immigration. The term "Italian" in this volume concerns persons or concepts whose origins can be traced to the Italian peninsula from Sicily to Piedmont. The best known and first Italian to land in the New World was, of course, Columbus. This volumes does not, however, attempt to treat more than a few of the millions of individual Italians who migrated to America. Later major figures include La Guardia, Giannini, Fermi, Pastore, Volpe, and Alioto. Yet the book concerns more than the achievements of such individuals. The mass migration occurring from the late nineteenth century onward needs fresh examination. Historians have become more sophisticated about what actually happened to immigrants after they landed. Conformity to the American work ethic was sometimes unpleasant, indeed sordid; but settlers who knew their goals and who labored hard could create in this New World the environment they deserved. This was the creed of most immigrants. Transplanted, rather than uprooted, Italians were rewarded materially by a better day than they had known before, although admittedly not without suffering, privation, and prejudice. (Author/JM)