But We Built Roads For Them: The Lies, Racism and False Memories around Italy's Colonial Past

by Francesco Filippi, Domenic Cusmano (Translator), Robin Philpot (Introduction)

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.

280 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2024

About the author

Francesco Filippi (1981) è storico della mentalità e formatore presso l’Associazione di Promozione Sociale Deina, che organizza viaggi di memoria e percorsi formativi in tutta Italia. Collabora alla stesura di manuali e percorsi educativi sui temi del rapporto tra memoria e presente. Tra le sue pubblicazioni Il Litorale Austriaco tra Otto e Novecento: quanti e quali confini?, in Piacenza, Trieste, Sarajevo 1918-2018 (a cura di Carla Antonini, 2018) e Appunti di Antimafia (con Dominella Trunfio, 2017). Per Bollati Boringhieri ha pubblicato Mussolini ha fatto anche cose buone. Le idiozie che continuano a circolare sul fascismo.

Reviews

[Olivia Mossuto · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The failure to come to terms with the imperialist past prevents us from understanding the reality of a globalized present, that causes billions of people to move for any number of reasons, some of them rooted in the history of the conquered and, therefore, the responsibility of the conquerers.”