Maltese in Michigan is an enlivening volume depicting the struggles and accomplishments of a singular culture, an immigrant narrative at once recognizable and enigmatic. Without realizing it, most Americans are probably familiar with the Maltese people through the cross displayed by firefighters, which bears a strong similarity in design and meaning to the one used by the Knights of Malta. The noble qualities embodied by the Maltese Cross are reflected in the pride and accomplishments of Maltese immigrants in Michigan, a small but vibrant ethnic group. Rooted in the post–World War II experiences of the 20th century, the Maltese established themselves in the city of Detroit, and thrived due to a strong work ethic and Catholic faith, while maintaining a strong central identity. This volume is a tribute to the Maltese of Michigan and all who have begun anew in an unfamiliar land and culture.

Most Maltese immigrants came to the United States during the first decades of the 20th century after the discharge of skilled workers from the Royal British Dockyard in 1919 following the end of World War I. More than 1,300 Maltese came to the United States in the first quarter of 1920. Many people found work in the automobile industry, and with about 5,000 residents, Detroit had the largest Maltese population in the United States. Maltese in Detroit focuses on the many people of Maltese descent who made their homes in Detroits Corktown area. By the mid-1920s, it is believed that more than 15,000 Maltese had settled in the United States. After World War II , the Maltese government launched a program to pay passage for Maltese willing to immigrate and remain abroad for at least two years. By the mid-1990s, an estimated more than 70,000 Maltese immigrants and descendants were living in the United States, with the largest single community in Detroit and its surrounding suburbs.

Focusing primarily on Standard Maltese, the authors clarify many areas which, until now, remain undefined, with emphasis on syntax and intonation. English loanwords continue to find their way into Standard Maltese, especially as the Maltese inhabitants become increasingly bilingual, and the variations are studied, as well as their morphological behavior. The book describes the syntactic, morphological and phonological structure of Maltese as one integrated linguistic system composed of different strands (Arabic, Romance and English).

This edited volume brings together a collection of works that comprehensively address both the myriad geomorphological landscapes of the Maltese Islands and how their evolution has been shaped over various time-scales by different sets of processes. Additionally, the work highlights how the small geographical setting of the Maltese Islands helped to closely connect these landscapes with Maltese society and as a result, they have evolved from stand-alone examples of geomorphology to important backdrops of Maltese cultural identity. Most of the contributing authors are academics – both local and foreign – with a research focus on the geomorphology of the Maltese Islands. However, the editors have also (and purposefully) chosen other contributors from governmental institutions and research agencies, who complement the geomorphological research with their proactive work in selected case studies on Maltese landscapes.

The Maltese Dialogue is the first comprehensive treatise of the history, institutions, and political projects of the Order of the Knights of Saint John of the Hospital, commonly known as the Maltese Order. It was written during the tenure of Grand Master Fra Claude de la Sengle (1553-1557), although the conversation between Commendator Fra Giuseppe Cambiano, one of the Order’s most prominent sixteenth-century functionaries, and three Venetian patricians, on which the Dialogue is based, may have taken place even earlier. The contents of the Dialogue fall in three categories: the opening section is the first detailed precis of the Hospitallers’ history; then comes the bulk of the treatise, presenting a concise summary of the Order’s constitution, institutional and legal organization, election procedures, recruitment of knights, rituals of instalment, and financial matters. The remaining section is a polemical expose arguing for the benefit of the Order’s abandoning of Malta and the recapturing of Tripoli. The Dialogue offers a hitherto unexplored, first-rate source on the Maltese knights’ self-projection as a unique transnational institution of early modern Europe in the era of nation-states, on the power plays of the major political agents in the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, and on Western Christian strategies of engagement of Ottoman imperialism at the peak of its expansion in the region. Those interested in the history of Christian-Muslim interaction, the evolution of crusading practices in the era of early modern predatory warfare, and the construction of historical memory on the case study of the longest-lasting, and still extant, knightly order, will find it to be a highly intriguing and informative reading.

Detroit's Corktown celebrates the history of Detroit's oldest neighborhood. From Irish immigrants in the 1840s to urban pioneers of the 21st century, this community has beckoned to the restless of spirit, the adventurous, and those who have sought to escape poverty and oppression to make a new life in America. While the city of Detroit has undergone tremendous change over the years, Corktown has never forgotten the solid working-class roots established by brave pioneers in the mid-19th century. Many of their shotgun homes are still occupied, and many commercial buildings have served the community for decades. Today the neighborhood is the scene of increasing residential and commercial development and has attracted attention throughout the region. No longer exclusively Irish, the community has also been important historically to the large German, Maltese, and Mexican populations of Detroit. Today it is a diverse and proud community of African Americans, Hispanics, working-class people of various national origins, and a growing population of young urban pioneers. It is still the sentimental heart of the Irish American community of metropolitan Detroit, and the Irish Plaza on Sixth Street honors the city's Irish pioneers and their 600,000 descendents living in the region.

Wind bands are common around the world, and the small Mediterranean island of Malta is no exception. Their abundance in Malta testifies to the popularity of the wind band tradition among the locals. It is central to everyday life, particularly during the village feast, which is synonymous with Maltese bands. These ensembles are not made up merely of performers and musical instruments but encapsulate a rich and intricate tradition embedded in the local community. This book describes the history and development of Maltese wind bands, social and political values, the Maltese march, entertainment, and the recording industry. Chapters demonstrate how local communality, partisan political division and rivalry, foreign influences, continuation of past practices as well as the introduction of new ones, and other interests have coalesced to shape the contemporary Maltese wind band tradition.

Severed from its parent language and from the other vernaculars, as well as from the Islamic culture and religion, the peripheral Arabic dialect of Malta has for the last nine centuries been exposed to large-scale contact with Medieval Sicilian, Italian and, later, English. Modern Maltese thus incorporates a great mass of borrowed words. This volume is a description of the processes by which Romance and English loan verbs have been integrated to varying degrees into the Arabic structure of Maltese morphology. It also proposes a typological classification of borrowed verbs in a continuum ranging from fully-integrated types to practically “undigested” loans. The contact situation described here is of special interest both to Arabists and to scholars with an interest in language contact phenomena, especially in view of the basic incongruence between the languages involved, the long period of contact, and the small area in which it occurred.