Italy's Civilizing Mission in Africa PDF Download

Author: Paolo De Vecchi
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italians
Languages : en
Pages : 98

View

Book Description

Author: Giuseppe Finaldi
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039118038
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

View

Book Description
Italy's First African War (1880-1896) pitted a young and ambitious European nation against the ancient Empire of Ethiopia. The Least of Europe's Great Powers rashly assailed Africa's most formidable military power. The outcome was humiliating defeat for Italy and the survival, uniquely for any African nation in the years of the European Scramble for that continent, of Ethiopian independence. Notwithstanding Italy's disastrous first experience in the colonial fray, this book argues that the impact of the war went well beyond the battlefields of the Ethiopian highlands and reached into the minds of the Italian people at home. Through a detailed and exhaustive study of Italian popular culture, this book asks how far the First African War impacted on the Italian nation-building project and how far Italians were themselves changed by undergoing the experience of war and defeat in East Africa. Finaldi argues, for the first time in historiography on the subject, that there was substantial support for and awareness of Italy's military campaign and that 'Empire', as has come to be regarded as fundamental in the histories of other European countries, needs to be brought firmly into the mainstream of Italian national history. This book is an essential contribution to debates on the relationship between European national identity and culture and imperialism in the late 19th century.

Author: Stephen C. Bruner
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443878553
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 197

View

Book Description
“Civilizing Africa” – bringing European institutions and society to Africa – was a common rationale for nineteenth-century European expansions into that continent. However, in March 1891 a news correspondent accused officials in Italy’s Red Sea colony of having ordered, without trial, the secret and brutal killing of certain indigenous notables. A scandal erupted because the news contradicted civilizing expectations, portraying Italians rather than Africans as the barbarians. The press drove a public debate over the accusations, but the debate ultimately led to an unanticipated reversal: public acceptance of the killings, because most Italians no longer considered European standards applicable to Africans. Reportage on three topics turned out to be most influential in shifting the public outlook: an Italo-Abyssinian diplomatic impasse, an on-going Africa famine, and the public persona of a colonial commander. Historians have read the 1891 affair as an inconsequential, essentially minor event in the run-up to the 1896 battle of Adua (Adwa), Italy’s defeat by African forces that some have called an event of world-historical consequence. Yet the Livraghi affair re-shaped the Italian outlook on colonialism, opening the door to the later Italo-Abyssinian conflict and an event like Adua. The affair was so important to contemporary Italians that it occupied public attention for ten months, and influenced attitudes and colonial policy for decades. It prompted an enduring change without which there might have been no Adua.

Author: David Forgacs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107052173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

View

Book Description
Five case studies show how different people and places were marginalized and socially excluded as the Italian nation-state was formed.

Author: Samuel Agbamu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019266459X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

View

Book Description
The histories of Europe and Africa are closely intertwined. At times, this closeness has been emphasized, at other times, suppressed and denied. Since the nineteenth century, European imperial powers have carved up the continent of Africa among themselves, drawing borders and charting shorelines; in the process, inventing Africa. This was a project anchored in ancient Greek and Roman representations of Africa. For Italy, colonialism in Africa was a matter of consolidating its project of national unification, nominally completed in 1870 with the capture of Rome. By asserting its position as an imperial power, the young nation of Italy hoped to join the club of European nation-states and, in so doing, be rid of the perception that it was a country somewhere in between Europe and Africa. Yet, Italy's colonial endeavour in Africa was also a project with deep historical meaning. Italy posed its imperial project in Africa as a national return to territory which was rightfully Italian. Italian ideologues of imperialism based this claim on the history of Roman history on the continent. When Italian soldiers disembarked on the beaches of Libya during Italy's invasion of 1911-1912, and came across the ruins of Roman imperialism, they were, according to prominent cultural and political figures in Italy, rediscovering the traces of their ancestors. Yet, when Italian imperial ambitions set their sights on East Africa, regions that had not been conquered by Rome, how could Italy nevertheless shape its imperial project in the image of ancient Rome? This book charts this story. Beginning with Italy's first imperial endeavours on the African continent in the last decades of the nineteenth century and continuing right through to Italy's current attitudes towards Africa, this book argues that empire in Africa was a central aspect of Italian nation-building, and that this was a project which anchored itself in memories of ancient Rome in Africa. Although Fascism's invasion of Ethiopia (1935-1936) is the best-known moment of Italian imperialism in Africa, this book shows that Italian imperialism, modelled on ancient Rome, has a history which long predates Mussolini's movement, and has a legacy which continues to be acutely felt.

Author: Jacob Burckhardt
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3734085004
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

View

Book Description
Reproduction of the original: The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt

Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004438122
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

View

Book Description
The contributions in Civilizing Missions in the Twentieth Century discuss how top-down interventions to “improve” societies were justified in terms such as nation building, social engineering, humanitarianism, modernization or the spread of democracy.

Author: Giuseppe Finaldi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315520230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

View

Book Description
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.

Author: Gabriele Abbondanza
Publisher: Aracne
ISBN: 8854892424
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

View

Book Description
How did Italy’s role of regional power develop? How did it change from national unification to the present day? This book examines the degree of influence exerted by Italy in its own geopolitical context, with special focus on Libya and the Horn of Africa. With the aid of different research methods and thanks to two exclusive interviews (H.E. Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata and Gen. Vincenzo Ruggero Manca), this work traces the many stages that have characterized Italian foreign policy in its sphere of influence, its successes and its failures, from the country’s early colonial policies to the latest events. Images, graphics, maps and confidential documents further enrich the debate on one of the most ancient but controversial regional powers.

Author: R. Ben-Ghiat
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403981582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

View

Book Description
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.