But We Built Roads For Them

In the fiery political debates in and about Italy, silence reigns about the country’s colonial legacy. Reducing European colonial history to Britain and France has effectively concealed an enduring phenomenon in Italian history that lasted for 80 years (1882 to 1960). It also blots out the history of the countries it colonized in Northeastern Africa. Francesco Filippi challenges the myth of Italians being “nice people” or ‘good’ colonialists who simply built roads for Africans. Despite extensive historiography, the collective awareness of the nations conquered and the violence inflicted on them remains superficial, be it in Italy or internationally. He retraces Italy’s colonial history, focusing on how propaganda, literature and popular culture have warped our understanding of the past and thereby hampered our ability to deal with the present. Filippi’s unique approach in which he deftly pits historical facts against popular myths provides a model that can be adapted to countries everywhere, including the United States and Canada.