The Visible End of the Italian Empire: Displaced Persons, Colonial Settlers, and Refugees

Pamela Ballinger's new book, The World Refugees Made. Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy, builds upon a recent and consolidated interest in Europe's decolonisation. Traditionally seen as a minor player within the history of European colonialism, Italy has for a long time remained at the margins of these discussions and often seen as an exceptional case study. The World Refugees Made challenges this paradigm by examining the movements of peoples that left former Italian colonies and occupied territories following the end of the Second World War and that reached the Italian peninsula. It demonstrates the relevance of this case study for an understanding of more global and transnational processes taking place across the world such as the development of international debates on Europe's refugees and displaced persons and the question of colonial settlers leaving the colonies after 1945. This review essay situates Ballinger's work within broader historiographic trends on imperial and post-imperial Europe and on the migrations that followed decolonisation.