The metaphor, ‘the smallest book in the world,’ and its variants—such as “the shortest” or “the thinnest book in the world” is a disingenuous colloquial phrase that, when prefaced with the question “what is?” can then be associated with the speaker’s choice of ‘punchline’ answers, sometimes as a light-hearted look at the world and on other occasions transforming the seemingly benign question into a derisive statement of ridicule.

Occasionally, it is used as a racist insult disguised as humour, placed into the context of the Australian idiom “taking the piss”, which in its diluted form operates as joking without the element of the offence.

However, an example of the phrase’s racist connotations has been its association with Italian military performance in World War II, principally the North African campaign, of which the Australians were a part. The Italian performance in this campaign, particularly the early battles of 1940-41, was conspicuously underwhelming. These early battlefield outcomes for the Italians not only foreshadowed the tragedy that was to befall the country and its people in the ensuing years, but also served to set the tone for future vernacular commentary in popular Anglo-American literature and film. These discourses essentialised a complex national experience and stereotyped Italians in the context of their military’s performance in World War II.

Early post-war Anglo-American writers and film-makers tended to omit references to the Italian military presence or to stereotype Italian soldiers as peripheral figures, characterised by buffoonery and incompetence, barely registering as meaningful participants in the broader geopolitical conflict. However, contemporary literature (see the following authors’ works; (Carrier, 2015; Henry, 2021; Sadkovich, 1989; Stockings, 2010) offers a more nuanced and empathetic approach, acknowledging Italy’s economic, cultural and sociopolitical complexities at the time.
This website presents foundational research and creative experimentations for a future multimedia project incorporating first-person migrant perspectives and archival material. The ultimate aim is to present an authentic counter-narrative to the historical cultural hegemonic narrative surrounding Italo-Australians.

I often heard ‘the smallest book in the world’ joke applied in the Italian context growing up as a first-generation migrant in Australia. It elicited an uneasy silence and confusion, felt as an unarticulated rhetorical question: ‘Did I come from a nation of cowards?’ I could produce no contrary evidence, as these stereotypes appeared self-evident and naturalised, constructed within a broader social framework of cultural codes and signifying practices in the films I watched and the narratives I heard. ‘he ‘smallest book in the world’ trope was so pervasive that Osvaldo Bonutto (1963) felt the need to defend his identity in his autobiography, by devoting an entire chapter to ‘rebut the charge of [Italian] cowardice on the part of the armed forces’