An exploration of how Italy’s fascist and colonial legacies continue to shape contemporary Italian culture and public discourse.

This book examines how ideas, attitudes, and images belonging to Italy’s fascist colonial past can be traced within mainstream Italian culture since World War II. It investigates how the expansionist phase of the regime is acknowledged within contemporary discourse in Italy, and in debates concerning migration, multiculturalism, and the presence of Islam.

Focusing on how different media allow us to understand the ongoing legacies of Italian colonialism, the book uncovers the architectural remnants of imperialism and how sites like the EUR district in Rome have been the subject of representation, contestation, and remediation. It explores the meanings of the collections of colonial artifacts held by the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome, drawing on the expertise of the curatorial staff together with contemporary artists. It also looks at how the extensive literary corpus, produced primarily by writers of African and Italian origin, provides a crucial means of developing awareness for community groups, researchers, policymakers, and the public of the surreptitious continuation of thought processes associated with colonialism.

In a world in which we see mounting nostalgia for fascism and rising state-sponsored xenophobia, it is more important than ever to understand the workings of past authoritarian regimes and how the processes of thought and imagination that they promoted continue to exercise a powerful, though concealed, agency in the present. Charles Burdett’s book is a vital contribution to current debates around the ongoing significance of Italy’s authoritarian past.