This book provides a narrative history of Italian colonialism from Italian unification in the 1860s to the first decade of the twentieth century; that is, it details Italy’s imperialism in the years of the Scramble for Africa. It deals with the factors that drove Italy to search for territory in Africa in the 1870s and 1880s and describes the reasoning behind the trajectories adopted and objectives pursued. The events that brought Italy to open conflict with the Ethiopian Empire culminating in the Italian defeat at Adowa in March 1896 are central to the book. However its scope is much broader, as it considers the establishment of Italian power in Eritrea as well as Somalia before and after the defeat. By telling its history, it explains why Italy emerged irresolute and humiliated in this, its first thrust into Africa, yet nonetheless determined to pursue expansion in the future. The seeds for the conquest of Libya in 1911 and Ethiopia in 1935 had been sown.

Italian Colonialism is a pioneering anthology of texts by scholars from seven countries who represent the best of classical and newer approaches to the study of Italian colonization. Essays on the political, economic, and military aspects of Italian colonialism are featured alongside works that reflect the insights of anthropology, race and gender studies, film, architecture, and oral and cultural history. The volume includes many essays by Italian and African scholars that have never been translated into English. It is a unique resource that offers students and scholars a comprehensive view of the field.

This book, part two of Giuseppe Finaldi's sweeping account of Italian colonialism studies its history from the turn of the 20th century to the early 1930s. The book engages with a period of huge social, political and cultural change resulting in a new dynamism on the African and expansionist front. The period saw an economic leap forward, an extension of Italians' political engagement - through new forces such as popular socialism, social Catholicism and the 'new' nationalism - as well as a huge surge in the number of people leaving Italy for new lives in the Americas while expansionism made its mark in Libya, the horn of Africa and elsewhere.

The essays in this volume explores the ways in which the Italian colonial experience continues to be relevant, despite the extent to which forgetting colonialism became an integral part of Italian culture and national identity.

"This is the first book on Italian colonialism that specifically deals with the question of citizenship/subjecthood. Such a topic is crucial for understanding both Italian imperial rule and the complex dynamics of the different colonial societies where several actors, like notables, political leaders, minorities, etc., were involved. The chapters gathered in the book constitute an unprecedented account of a heterogeneous geographical area. The cases of Eritrea, Libya, Dodecanese, Ethiopia, and Albania confirm that citizenship and subjecthood in the colonial context were ductile political tools, which were structured according to the orientations of the Metropole and the challenges that came from the colonial societies, often swinging between submission, cooptation to the colonial power, and resistance. On one hand, the book offers an account of the different policies of citizenship implemented in the Italian colonies, in particular the construction of gradated forms of citizenship, the repression and expulsion of dissidents, the systems of endearment of local people and cooptation of the elites, and the racialization of legal status. On the other, it deals with the various answers coming from the local populations in terms of resistance, negotiation, and construction of social identity"--

This book examines the evolving representations of the colonial past from the mid-19th century up to decolonization in the 1960s and 70s ? the so-called era of Modern Imperialism – in post-war history textbooks from across the world. The aim of the book is to examine the evolving outlook of colonial representations in history education and the underpinning explanations for the specific outlook in different – former colonizer and colonized – countries (to be found in collective memory, popular historical culture, social representations, identity-building processes, and the state of historical knowledge within academia). The approach of the book is novel and innovative in different ways. First of all, given the complexity of the research, an original interdisciplinary approach has been implemented, which brings together historians, history educators and social psychologists to examine representations of colonialism in history education in different countries around the world while drawing on different theoretical frameworks. Secondly, given the interest in the interplay between collective memory, popular historical culture, social representations, and the state of historical knowledge within academia, a diachronic approach is implemented, examining the evolving representations of the colonial past, and connecting them to developments within society at large and academia. This will allow for a deeper understanding of the processes under examination. Thirdly, studies from various corners of the world are included in the book. More specifically, the project includes research from three categories of countries: former colonizer countries – including England, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Belgium –, countries having been both colonized and colonizer – Chile – and former colonized countries, including Zimbabwe, Malta and Mozambique. This selection allows pairing up the countries under review as former colonizing-colonized ones (for instance Portugal-Mozambique, United Kingdom-Malta), allowing for an in-depth comparison between the countries involved. Before reaching the research core, three introductory chapters outline three general issues. The book starts with addressing the different approaches and epistemological underpinnings history and social psychology as academic disciplines hold. In a second chapter, evolutions within international academic colonial historiography are analyzed, with a special focus on the recent development of New Imperial History. A third chapter analyses history textbooks as cultural tools and political means of transmitting historical knowledge and representations across generations. The next ten chapters form the core of the book, in which evolving representations of colonial history (from mid-19th century until decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s) are examined, explained and reflected upon, for the above mentioned countries. This is done through a history textbook analysis in a diachronic perspective. For some countries the analysis dates back to textbooks published after the Second World War; for other countries the focus will be more limited in time. The research presented is done by historians and history educators, as well as by social psychologists. In a concluding chapter, an overall overview is presented, in which similarities and differences throughout the case studies are identified, interpreted and reflected upon.