Across the Colonial Sea: Family Reunification, Vatican Humanitarianism, and the End of Empire (1943–1950) counters a top-down view of humanitarianism by using untapped archival sources to center the experience of the thirty thousand children of Italian settlers throughout North Africa who had been repatriated to Italy because of the impending war, and who in its aftermath wanted to go home. With the collapse of the Fascist government and uncertainty about the fate of Italian colonial possessions, the Vatican ventured onto the stage to maneuver on the children’s behalf—to mixed success. By analyzing the spaces that the children occupied and the intermediaries with whom they interacted, my project complicates the conventional vision of the church’s efforts to occupy a meaningful place in the postwar equilibrium. This interdisciplinary, transnational book shows how intersecting—at times contradictory—humanitarian, political, and theological narratives shaped global diplomacy and these children’s fate.