The "purpose in this volume is chiefly to make my readers sympathetically acquainted, so far as I am able, with the Italian of to-day in his old home and his new. For this purpose I have not only studied his history and his achievements in the past, but I have tried through personal acquaintance to understand something of his present viewpoint. In a word, I have sought to introduce him as he is to my fellow Americans who trace their descent from other racial stocks. This volume was largely written in Italy, while the places and people described were freshly in mind"--Introd.