On October 2, 1935, Benito Mussolini—Fascist Italy’s “Duce”—delivered an impassioned speech from his office balcony in Rome to a mass of Italians. Proclaiming the dawn of a glorious new age for Italy, Mussolini outlined what he imagined would be a “gigantic spectacle” the entire world would jealously admire. Italy had for too long sat along the sidelines of imperial expansion, receiving nothing but “a few crumbs of the rich colonial booty.” The Duce contended that Italians had been deprived of a “small place in the sun,” prompting his regime to join the “Scramble for Africa.” Mussolini clarified his position: “We have been patient for thirteen years... With Ethiopia we have been patient for forty years! It is time to say enough!” The following day, Italy’s armed forces poured over the border, marking the beginning of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

In response, Italians worldwide celebrated their homeland’s “heroic” conquest. Between December 1935 and May 1936, for instance, Manhattan’s Italian-American “colony” held several pro-war rallies, bringing in some $14,000 in support of the Duce’s campaign. For Italians both within and beyond the peninsula, Mussolini’s forceful assertion of Italy’s “rights” symbolized the Southern European country’s palingenesis—its transformation from a so-called “proletarian” nation to a decidedly imperial, and therefore modern, national community.

For many non-Italian audiences, however, the dictatorship’s invasion of Ethiopia was widely viewed as an illegal, and decidedly merciless, conquest by yet another bloodthirsty European imperial power. The Black communities of North America and the Caribbean, in particular, organized anti-fascist rallies in vociferous opposition. In Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, groups like the United Aid for Ethiopia were spontaneously established, actively lobbying the U.S. Congress for support. Black opposition was not limited to North America; in British Jamaica, the Rastafarian movement began preparing for a forthcoming Rapture, believing the Emperor of Ethiopia would miraculously release the scattered members of the African diaspora.

In juxtaposing these contrasting responses, the various publications I have planned will shed significant light upon our understanding of the origins, impacts, and consequences of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, from a decidedly transnational methodological perspective.

Chapters

• "'Propaganda for Our Italy': Ruth Williams Ricci, Gendered Mobility, and Fascist Italy’s African Empire, 1935-1941," in Andrea Germer and Jasmin Rückert, eds., Gendering Fascism: Individual Actors, Concepts, and Transnational Connections (Leiden: Brill, 2025)