Mussolini's Follies: Fascism in Its Imperial and Racist Phase, 1935–1940

Abstract

With the outbreak of war in Ethiopia in late 1935 Italian Fascism shifted into a new phase, which can be called imperial-colonialist-racial. Until 1935 Italy had invested little in the colonies and maintained a relatively small presence in Africa beyond a few cities in Libya. Yet from 1935 to 1940 the Fascist regime shifted enormous amounts of money and effort to create a new Fascist colonial society. This article attempts to explain how this happened by linking the shift to imperial politics to a new totalitarian drive to re-educate Italians and to the adoption of official racism.