“…an absorbing study…[that] opens up fascinating potential for comparative analysis.” · JRAI"…a significant contribution to the anthropology of the lagoon, previously not studied in English-language anthropology. The careful and fascinating account of lace-making is also an important contribution to the study of craft and skill, particularly gendered skill that remains underdeveloped in the English-language anthropology of Italy and indeed of Europe. More broadly, this book successfully offers a poignant portrait of a tiny community that is at once proud of its unique skills and achievements, and dismayed and humiliated by its continuing exclusion from the wealth and power of the city, with "a deep-rooted sense of [its] own marginality" · H-Environment"The work has qualities that could make it a model for anthropologists dissatisfied with the attempt to create an 'urban anthropology' but unwilling to continue the traditional obsession with remote communities." · Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University