Mussolini's Nation-Empire
Sovereignty and Settlement in Italy's Borderlands, 1922–1943

The first exploration of how Mussolini employed population settlement inside the nation and across the empire to strengthen Italian sovereignty.

Roberta Pergher (Author)

9781108419741, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 November 2017

296 pages, 3 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.9 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'… this work undoubtedly breaks important new ground in the rich and emerging field of Italian colonial and postcolonial studies.' Neelam Srivastava, The American Historical Review

Roberta Pergher transforms our understanding of Fascist rule. Examining Fascist Italy's efforts to control the antipodes of its realm - the regions annexed in northern Italy after the First World War, and Italy's North African colonies - she shows how the regime struggled to imagine and implement Italian sovereignty over alien territories and peoples. Contrary to the claims of existing scholarship, Fascist settlement policy in these regions was not designed to solve an overpopulation problem, but to bolster Italian claims to rule in an era that prized self-determination and no longer saw imperial claims as self-evident. Professor Pergher explores the character and impact of Fascist settlement policy and the degree to which ordinary Italians participated in and challenged the regime's efforts to Italianize contested territory. Employing models and concepts from the historiography of empire, she shows how Fascist Italy rethought the boundaries between national and imperial rule.

Introduction
1. The boundaries of sovereignty: Italian rule in contested territories
2. Settlement and sovereignty from the Alps to Africa. 3. Divided by a common language: the regime and the settlers
4. Other subjects, other citizens: the regime and the native populations
5. 'Inviolable' borders: land, people and the Option Agreement between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy
Conclusion: Mussolini's Nation-Empire.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]