Italy and Libya

Luciano Monzali is Full Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’, Italy. He is one the most distinguished historians of Italian Foreign Policy. He is the author of ‘The Italians of Dalmatia: From Italian Unification to World War I’ (2009) and editor with Paolo Soave of ‘Italy and the Middle East. Geopolitics, Dialogue and Power during the Cold War’ (2021). Paolo Soave is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at the University of Bologna, Italy. His research interests are focused on Italian Foreign Policy, U.S. Foreign Policy, First World War, Cold War. Among his recent publications: ‘Italy and the Middle East. Geopolitics, Dialogue and Power during the Cold War’ (2021); ‘Una vittoria mutilata? L’Italia e la conferenza di pace di Parigi’ (2020).

Introduction: Italy and Libya: A Historical Perspective of a Mediterranean Relationship. Part 1: Italy and Libya: From Liberal Colonialism to Fascism. 1. Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in Liberal Italy’s Foreign Policy 2. History of a Minority, not a Minor History: the Maltese Community in Tripoli from the Liberal Age to Fascism 3. From the ‘Riconquista’ to the Normalisation: Fascism and Libya 4. The Demographic Colonisation in Libya 1926 – 1940 5. If the monument could speak: Jewish Italian imaginaries across the Mediterranean. Part 2: Italy and Independent Libya: Building a ‘Special Relationship’. 6. Pietro Quaroni, Post-Fascist Italy and the Libyan Question 1945-1949 7. Republican Italy and the Senussi Monarchy 1951-1969 8. Aldo Moro, Italian Diplomacy and Gaddafi’s Rise to Power 1969-1978 9. The Silent Friend. ENI and Gaddafi’s Libya 10. From Troublemaker to Strategic Partner: Gaddafi and the West 11. Two Great Friends. Berlusconi and Gaddafi 1994-2011. Part 3: Fragmented Libya: Trying to Save the Italian and European Influences. 12. Libya’s Arab Spring And Italy’s Post-Uprising Influence 13. Italy and the Disintegration of the Libyan State 14. A New State-Building Process for Libya? Italy and the International Community 2011-2021.