This book examines Italy’s colonial history from the turn of the twentieth century to the outbreak of the First World War.

This first volume engages with a period of huge social, political and cultural change in Italy resulting in a new dynamism on the African and expansionist front. Offering a sweeping account of events and a vast array of characters, it tells the story of a nation bent on conquest in China, Africa and the Mediterranean, of indigenous resistance in Libya and East Africa, of defeat, and of victory. It recounts how Italy dreamed and pursued an empire, and how reality was never far from tripping up this, the least of the European Great Powers. From the ramifications of the defeat at Adowa in 1896, through the rule of prime minister Giovanni Giolitti, to the attack on the Ottoman Empire in 1911, and beyond, the history of Italian colonialism is followed here up to the looming of the First World War.

This volume is of great value to students and scholars alike interested in Italian, European, African and colonial history.