The book "Soldati e patrie: I combattenti alleati di origine italiana nella Seconda guerra mondiale" by Matteo Pretelli and Francesco Fusi (Bologna: il Mulino 2022) won the 2025 “Willi Paul Adams Award” for the best book on American history published in a language other than English.

The Organization of American Historians is one the main organizations of international scholars studying the history of the United States. It is the third time Italian scholars are recognized this award. The book is a comprehensive story of the Allied service members of Italian descent who fought in World War II.

This is the motivation for the award:

Matteo Pretelli and Francesco Fusi’s book offers fresh new views on ethnic formation, cultural identity, and the concept of “homeland”, while contributing to the social and cultural history of American engagement in World War II. It unveils the stories of soldiers of Italian ancestry serving overseas at a time when the loyalties of Italian Americans were being questioned in the United States. The book traces the roles of Italian American soldiers globally with a special emphasis on their service in Italy. Embracing a broad scope and looking at various forms of American soldiers’ engagement during the war, this book enriches U.S. history with multilingual sources scattered in archives on four continents. The book is an important addition to the fields the social history of war, ethnic and migration studies, and the history of citizenship.