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The late R uDolph J. v ecoli was Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. F Rancesco D uRante is a journalist as well as Professor of Literature at the University of Suor Orsola Benincasa as part of the Program in Modern Languages and Culture.
Oh Capitano!
talian aDventuReR anD sea captain celso cesaRe MoReno tRaveleD the woRlD lying, scheming, and building an extensive patron/client network to establish his reputation as a middle-man and person of significance. Through his machinations, Moreno became a critical player in the expansion of Western trade and imperialism in Asia, the trafficking of migrant workers and children in the Atlantic, the conflicts of Americans and Native Hawaiians over the fate of Hawai‘i, and the imperial competitions of French, British, Italian, and American governments during a crucially important era of sovereign expansion during the nineteenth century. Oh Capitano! teases out Moreno’s enormous peculiarities and fascination as well as his significance. With its focus on Moreno, Oh Capitano! illustrates some of the most puzzling cultural traits of emigrant Italian elites. Called a “carpet beggar,” “land pirate,” and “extinct volcano,” among many other derogatory monikers, Celso emerges in this fascinating biography as a multifaceted, chameleon-like personality not reducible to a single epithet.
Vecoli and Durante
BIOGRAPHY | HISTORY | POLITICS
“Whether understood as a fake, a scoundrel, a chameleon, an adventurer, a speculator, a renegade, or simply a nut job (and Moreno was, in his lifetime, slapped with all these labels) or instead accepted as a ‘dreamer’ (Moreno’s preferred description of himself, especially when comparing himself grandiosely to Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus), Moreno the man jumps from the pages of this book. The power of biography to illustrate and to illuminate the past and the individual life in its social context should never be underestimated.”—D onna R. G abaccia , from the Introduction
e lizabeth o. v enDitto formerly managed the Immigrant Stories Project at the Immigrant Research Center, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. New York
www.fordhampress.com
Cover image: Portrait of Celso Moreno, Rudolph J. Vecoli Papers, Immigration History Research Center Archives, University of Minnesota. Portrait of Rudolph J. Vecoli, Rudolph J. Vecoli Papers, Immigration History Research Center Archives, University of Minnesota. Cover design by Ann-Christine Racette
Fordham
F ordham U niversity P res s
Celso Cesare Moreno— Adventurer, Cheater, and Scoundrel on Four Continents
Oh Capitano!
Rudolph J. Vecoli and Francesco Durante Translated by Elizabeth O. Venditto