A Food Utopia? Italian Colonial Visions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, 1911–13

Abstract:

This article explores the uses of utopian rhetoric of food plenty in Italian colonial visions before the First World War. It examines the travel writings of three leading Italian journalists, Enrico Corradini, Arnaldo Fraccaroli, and Giuseppe Bevione, who visited the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and campaigned for their colonization by Liberal Italy. By reconstructing their utopian rhetoric of food plenty, this article seeks to show the relevance of arguments about food and agriculture produce to early twentieth century colonial visions, shedding light on an aspect of Italian political thought that has been hitherto marginalized in existing historical scholarship.