Mathieu Grenet is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute, Florence. His dissertation deals with the comparison of three communities of the Greek diaspora - namely those Venice, Livorno and Marseille - between the 1770S and the 1830s. A former junior lecturer at the University of Lyon 2, France, he has taught for three years (2003-2006) European and French modern history, while appointed as associate researcher in programs on historical demography and urban history. Author of several articles, he has published on the social and political history of the communities of the Greek diaspora, as well as on other issues such as migratory networks and the Levant trade. He is currently co-editing a volume on colonial and world history (Orb and Sceptre: Global and Imperial Histories, forthcoming), and is co-organizing a panel on "Migrant Communities and Urban Space in the Mediterranean ports, 17th-19th centuries" for the 10th International Conference on Urban History, to be held in Ghent, Belgium, in September 2010.