Italian Imperialism Research Articles

The Politics of Geography and the Italian Occupation of Libya

AbstractThis article adopts a broad view of geography to examine some of the roles which geographical knowledges, of various kinds, played in constituting Libya in the Italian geographical imagination. After problematising geography as a situated form of knowledge with a long tradition of pro-imperial activities, it considers some of the ways in which geographical discourses laid the foundations for Italian imperialism in Libya. In particular the article considers how Italian geography played a crucial role in the ‘colonial science’ by which Fascist Italy attempted symbolically and intellectually to capture Libya and recast it as a controlled, knowable colonial domain.

Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanità

In a recent article published in this journal, Emilio Gentile briefly mentioned the cult of the romanita to illustrate his thesis about fascism as a political religion.' Gentile's observations on the (semi-) religious connotations of fascist doctrine are relevant to the debate concerning the ideological character of fascism. His thesis offers an adequate terminology for the description of fascism as a flexible type of doctrine, without leading to a nihilistic stance about the relevance of the study of fascist ideology. Although fascism hardly qualifies as an 'established' and consistent ideology of the Marxist type, a reconstruction of the doctrinal development of fascism (and its roots) is vital for our understanding of the relative success of the regime during the years of consensus. From a historiographical point of view, there is another important aspect of Gentile's article: he is one of the first scholars of fascist history to acknowledge the relevance of the cult of classical Roman history for fascist propaganda during the 1930s. In fact, he seems to support the thesis that the romanita was of major importance for the propaganda of fascist political doctrine during that decade. This was noted by various Italian scholars of antiquity such as Luciano Canfora and Mariella Cagnetta.2 Up until now, most historians of fascist ideology have dealt with the cult of the romanita as being of merely rhetorical and symbolic value for fascism, especially in propaganda concerning the Italian imperialism of the 1930s. Following this interpretation we are compelled to consider the use of the romanita within fascist 'imperial' propaganda as an opportunistic choice of 'Roman' catchwords and symbols, lacking any substantial ideological coherence and with no intellectual background of any standing.3 We are compelled to believe that fascist propaganda only emphasized the 'Roman' roots of the ducismo and the 'Roman'

Ho Lung's Days with the Red Army

In 1927 just as the Northern Expedition to overthrow the warlords was sweeping ahead, the Kuomintang reactionaries headed by Chiang Kai-shek and backed by British, United States, Japanese and Italian imperialism launched a counterrevolutionary coup in Shanghai and Wuhan in which they massacred Communists and the working people.

Italian Imperialism in Its Ethiopian Context

The history of Italian imperialism in the nineteenth century has generally been highlighted by reference to the Treaty of Uccialli in 1889 and the Battle of Adowa in 1896. That treaty is widely supposed to have been the basis for the extension of an Italian protectorate over Ethiopia, thus marking the creation of an, instant empire in East Africa. It has usually beern treated in terms; of a confusion of language between the Amharic and the! Italian texts oir as a deliberate duping of one party by the other. The battle, which led to the abnegation of the Treaty of Uccialli, was, to the chagrin of many an imperialist (and no doubt to the horror of Prime Minister Francesco, Crispi's government), a major defeat of a large European military force at the hands of an indigenous African army. Moreover, it caused the collapse of Italian imperialist designs in all areas of Africa until the, advent of the Libyan War in 1911-1912. Yet clearly there is far more to this chapter of imperialism than an unsuccessful diplomatic venture and a catastrophic military defeat. Some seek clarification by reference to, Hobson or Lenin and general theories of European expansion, but such an approach is inadequate because it does not raise the kinds of questions necessary to achieving an understanding of the historical rather than the theoretical phenomenon of Italian imperialism. Moreover, such theories have been based, especially in the! Italian case, on. a woeful lack of evidence. Others seek understanding by study of purely Italian, that is, peninsular, ideas and events the growth of industry in the north, the role of southern politicians, the desire to' emulate the expansionist slogans and activities; of the other great