In the decade after World War II, up to 350.000 ethnic Italians were displaced from the border zone between Italy and Yugoslavia known as the Julian March. This book reveals the subtle yet fascinating contepomrary repercussions of this often overlooked yet contentious episode of European history. Examining the political and cultural contexts in which this understanding of historical consciousness has been formed, Ballinger undertakes the most extensive fieldwork ever done on this subject -not only around Trieste, where most of the exiles settled, but on the Istrian Peninsula, where those who stayed behind still live.