Mussolini's Nature An Environmental History of Italian Fascism

This exploration of the environmental practices of Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime invites readers to consider the ecological connections of all political projects.

“We might think we see a mountain while it was a war; a forest can actually be an engine; a monument to workers might reflect the violence of a colonial empire.”—extracted from Mussolini’s Nature
 
In this first environmental history of Italian fascism, Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, and Wilko Graf von Hardenberg reveal that nature and fascist rhetoric are inextricable. Mussolini’s Nature explores fascist political ecologies, or rather the practices and narratives through which the regime constructed imaginary and material ecologies functional to its political project. The book does not pursue the ghost of a green Mussolini by counting how many national parks were created during the regime or how many trees planted. Instead, the reader is trained to recognize fascist political ecology in Mussolini’s speeches, reclaimed landscapes, policies of economic self-sufficiency, propaganda documentaries, reforested areas, and in the environmental transformation of its colonial holdings.
 
The authors conclude with an examination of the role of fascist landscapes in the country’s postwar reconstruction: Mussolini’s nature is still visible today through plaques, monuments, toponomy, and the shapes of landscapes. This original, and surprisingly intimate, environmental history is not merely a chronicle of conservation in fascist Italy but also an invitation to consider the socioecological connections of all political projects. 

Marco Armiero is Research Director of the Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean, Naples, Italy, and Director of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Roberta Biasillo is Assistant Professor of Contemporary Political History at Utrecht University. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg is Research Scholar and PI of the project “The Sound of Nature: Soundscapes and Environmental Awareness, 1750–1950” at Humboldt University in Berlin.

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Mussolini's Embodied Nature 11
Mussolini Biographies 11
The Fascist Discourse of Nature 27
2 Natural Wars: Wheat and Swamps 37
Rebirth or Continuity? 37
The Battle for Wheat 42
Integral Land Reclamation 44
Propaganda and International Reception 49
Between Transformation and Protection 55
3 Fascist Modernity 63
Autarky 63
Dams 73
The Gasogene Engine 81
4 The Regime of Protection 93
Inheriting Nature 93
Fascistization of Nature Protection 96
Fascist Parks 101
Bears in Black Shirts 107
Quail, Sparrows, and Scientists 110
5 The Ecologies of Empire 117
Imagining the Lands of Empire 117
The Rest of Nothing 121
The Deception behind the Miracle 131
Gold to the Motherland 141
Empire as Ecological Failure 150
6 Fascist Landscapes Beyond Fascism 153
Nomen omen: A Monument to Whom? 153
A Past That Does Not Pass 160
The Fascist Landscape of the Republic 163
What about Cities? 170
Invisible Memories, Silent Monuments 176
Conclusion 179
Notes 187
References 213
Index 241