Monuments, Public Space, and the Memory of Empire in Modern Italy

 In this article, the author addresses one type of war that many Europeans have found difficult to openly debate. Focusing on twentieth-century Italy, she addresses the history and memory of empire, with a special emphasis on Italy's colonial wars in Africa. In particular, she considers how and why Italian political leaders and ordinary citizens have included—but also excluded—colonial conquest as a central chapter of their modern national military, political and civic history. To do so, she examines a number of official, public markers to Italy's colonial wars, including monuments, squares, street names, and military and civilian cemeteries and mausoleums. Her goal is to trace the shifting role these markers of memory have played in forging official and public attitudes toward the imperial past, and how they have both fit, and resisted, Italian conventions of national and military commemoration. [Author]