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This article explores the policies adopted and implemented against enemy property from the beginning of the Great War to the signing of the peace treaties in Europe. Breaking a long-standing tradition of respect for individual property and inspired by economic nationalism, the countries at war not only ceased trading with the enemy but resorted to legal means and dedicated bureaucracies to seizing, controlling, confiscating and, at a later stage, liquidating assets – real estate, capital invested in business activities, banks, ships, infrastructure and networks in addition to patents and trademarks or personal possessions – belonging to enemy aliens found in their respective territories., 1914-1918-Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War

Il saggio discute il volume Mediterranean Diasporas soffermandosi in particolare sull’intreccio tra storia delle migrazioni e storia intellettuale e sulla prospettiva transnazionale adottata dai diversi contributi.

What did it mean to be an alien, and in particular an enemy alien, in the interstate conflicts that occurred over the nineteenth century and that climaxed in the First World War? In this ambitious and broad-ranging study, Daniela L. Caglioti highlights the many ways in which belligerent countries throughout the world mobilized populations along the member/non-member divide, redefined inclusion and exclusion, and refashioned notions and practices of citizenship. She examines what it meant to be an alien in wartime, how the treatment of aliens in wartime interfered with sovereignty and the rule of law, and how that treatment affected population policies, individual and human rights, and conceptions of belonging. Concentrating on the gulf between citizens and foreigners and on the dilemma of balancing rights and security in wartime, Caglioti highlights how each country, regardless of its political system, chose national security even if this meant reducing freedom, discriminating among citizens and non-citizens, and violating international law.