Angelo Caglioti (Barnard College), “Making Fascist Science: The Conquest of Libya and the Radicalization of Italian Environmental Scientists (1911-1939)” (History of Science and Medicine)

This talk explores the characteristics of “fascist science” and how they developed during the radicalization of Italian scientists in the conquest of Libya. When Italy invaded Libya in 1911, an interdisciplinary group of experts hurried to study what they believed would become Italy’s “Fourth Shore” in the Mediterranean. To their dismay, the region’s aridity shattered their grand expectations, which were based on the idea of North Africa as Rome’s former granary. Under the liberal government, Libya was called “a big box of sand” and soon forgotten. Conversely, the fascist regime transformed the colonization of Libya and its environmental changes into evidence that fascist science succeeded, while the exploitative techniques of British imperialism and American capitalism caused desertification and the Dust Bowl. Even before Mussolini’s rise to power, Italian scientists called for a change in practices and a totalitarian approach to land use under the name of bonifica (“reclamation”). How did fascist science develop from the colonization of Libya’s arid environment?