In this engaging collection of ten essays, editors Charles Capper and Cristina Giorcelli attempt to enlarge Margaret Fuller's reputation as an American writer whose later works not only offered firsthand and insightful commentary on the Italian Revolution of 1848 but also proposed how America could place itself strongly and morally on the world stage. The book grew out of a November 2000 international conference at the American Academy in Rome, “Margaret Fuller: Tra Europa e Stati Uniti d’America,” where over 100 scholars from more than six countries grappled with Fuller's transnationalism—her developing love of Europe, particularly Italy, and her continuing need to define and improve the United States. While most of the essays here are worthy of note to various degrees, several stand out.

Charles Capper's “Getting from Here to There: Margaret Fuller's American Transnational Odyssey” cogently argues that Fuller's “transnationalist outlook” (19) really had its beginnings before she went to Europe and involved three steps. First, the “European-centered” education that her father gave her laid the foundation for her evolving philosophy, but she eventually found it to be a “dead end” (4). As an adult, she blended her European ideals with some Transcendentalist thought; it was at this time that Fuller realized that a dialectic approach was needed for the “reform [of ] American culture” (7). Finally, her time in New York as literary editor for the New-York Daily Tribune afforded her the opportunity of living in “a cosmopolitan American nation” (12), a place where native and immigrant cultures could retain their distinctive characteristics while at the same time evolving into something new and original.

In “Margaret Fuller's Search for the Maternal,” Anna Scacchi disputes Christina Zwarg's contention that analysis of Fuller's work has suffered due to scholars’ fixation with her life. Scacchi contends that we need to “read” her texts and her life for a fuller appreciation of both. Specifically, Scacchi see Fuller's search for the maternal as a search for identity; as well, it is “a collective issue” (73), not just an individual one. Her pursuit began with her maternal role as teacher and then led her to the “mother” Rome, where eventually she became a mother. It is in the intersection of these roles that Scacchi believes Fuller found her true voice.

Bell Gale Chevigny's “Mutual Interpretation: Margaret Fuller's Journeys in Italy” focuses on how mutual interpretation—“the social origins of consciousness”—shaped Fuller's personal and public responses to what was happening in Italy in 1846–50 (99). Chevigny demonstrates Fuller's belief that in order to essentially see and know oneself, one has to be open and engage in the differences one finds in the world, whether those differences be individual, cultural, or arising from gender.

Larry J. Reynolds's “Righteous Violence: The Roman Republic and Margaret Fuller's Revolutionary Example” examines how Fuller's dispatches on the Italian Revolution helped set the tone leading up to the Civil War. Specifically, her thoughts on “violence as a means to resist oppression and bring about justice” (179) influenced such writers as Emerson, Hawthorne, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Other essays in the book address Fuller's use of Goethe's ideas, the quest for a definition of heroism that worked for her, her role in travel writing, and her idealism about the Italian Republic. Unfortunately, the last two essays, while worthy of note, seem out of place in this book. Giorcelli's “A Humbug, A Bounder, and A Dabbler: Margaret Fuller, Cristina di Belgioioso, and Christina Casamassima” attempts to prove, through an analysis of several of Henry James's works, that Fuller's friendship with Belgioioso provided the lasting tarnish on “a reputation already maimed” (195). However, Giorcelli's essay seems not to address the collection's purpose. As well, Maria Anna Stefanelli's “Margaret Fuller on the Stage” centers on Susan Sontag's 1993 play Alice in Bed (in which Fuller is a character); other than a tenuous connection to Pirandello, it does not concern itself with Fuller as transnational.

If there is a weakness to this book, it occurs because of its focus on Fuller's writings from Europe (1846–50), chiefly her letters and dispatches for the New-York Daily Tribune. Several essays repeat themes and ideas, such as Fuller's categorization of American travelers, her philosophy of sympathetic exchange, her feeling of belonging in and to Italy, and her insistence on getting to know the common Italians—so much so that a reader wonders if anything new is being offered. However, this weakness also can be seen as its strength: precisely because the collection concentrates on these four years, the reader is attentive to how her time in Europe strongly influenced Fuller's opinions and philosophies on issues that always engaged her: women's rights, politics, oppression, and how America needed to return to its original principles. We are left speculating sadly on what provocative and passionate work Fuller might have produced were it not for her tragic and untimely death. Margaret Fuller: Transatlantic Crossings in a Revolutionary Age should prove a valued addition to Fuller scholarship.