During the twenty years of Mussolinis rule a huge number of travel texts were written of journeys made during the interwar period to the sacred sites of Fascist Italy, Mussolinis newly conquered African empire, Spain during the Civil War, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the America of the New Deal. Examining these observations by writers and journalists, the author throws new light on the evolving ideology of Fascism, how it was experienced and propagated by prominent figures of the time; how the regime created a utopian vision of the Roman past and the imperial future; and how it interpreted the attractions and dangers of other totalitarian cultures.

The book helps gain a better understanding of the evolving concepts of imperialism, which were at the heart of Italian Fascism, and thus shows that travel writing can offer an important contribution to historical analysis.

Charles Burdett, Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Bristol, specializes on Italian culture under Fascism. He is the author ofVincenzo Cardarelli and his Contemporaries (Oxford University Press, 1999). He is the editor with Claire Gorrara and Helmut Peitsch ofEuropean Memories of the Second World War (Berghahn Books, 1999) and with Derek Duncan, ofCultural Encounters: European Travel Writing of the 1930s (Berghahn Books, 2002).

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements

Introduction: Writing on Fascist Culture

Chapter 1. Signs of Roman Rule: Italian Tourists and Travellers in the Eastern MediterraneanChapter 2. Fascination and Hostility: Two Ambivalent Accounts of Distant JourneysChapter 3. The Other Spaces of Fascist Italy: The Cemetery, the Prison and the Internal ColonyChapter 4. Narratives of Settlement in Italian East Africa 19361941Chapter 5. Itineraries through Melodrama: Italian Correspondents and the Spanish Civil WarChapter 6. Representing Rapprochement with Nazi GermanyChapter 7. Competing Models of Humanity: Perceptions of Russia and the United States on the Eve of the Second World War

Conclusion

Index