La Grande Guerra italiana sul fronte coloniale

Abstract

In the last 15-20 years, there has been a general rediscovery of the colonial past of Italy in the Italian historical debate; a reflection that focused both on the work of conquest and construction of the Italian colonial Empire, and on the memory that this empire had in the post-war period. These studies focused on specific geographic areas or privileged an interpretative profile that responded to the interests of individual authors, or they sought to hold together more aspects of colonial experience, considering cultural, political, military, diplomatic and cultural issues, social an unicum to understand the Italian Empire. If you look at these studies, there is no reflection on the Italian colonial presence during the Great War. This historiographic gap is undoubtedly dependent on the low economic and military burden that the colonial Empire had in supporting the Italian war effort and, therefore, in the vision of an “European war”. Just to try to fill, at least partially, this gap «Nuova Rivista Storica» wanted to devote a special dossier on war in Africa, entitled The Great War in Colony.