Transnational Migrants: A Reappraisal of Ioanna Laliotou’s Transatlantic Subjects (Book review)

Abstract

Three years ago, a senior historian shared some invaluable advice on how to ready my doctoral thesis for publication. My thesis, he suggested, would be significantly enhanced by a “deeply informed” engagement with Transatlantic Subjects: Acts of Migration and Cultures of Transnationalism Between Greece and America by Ioanna Laliotou. Aside from the obvious differences in geographical focus, it became apparent that my thesis—Greek Settlers: Race, Labour and the Making of White Australia, 1890s-1920s —paralleled Laliotou’s refreshing approach to historical inquiry, which breaks free from the limitations of the nation-centric migration histories that have long dominated the field.