Generations of Empire: Youth from Ottoman to Italian Rule in the Mediterranean

by Andreas Guidi

Overview

In 1912, Italy occupied Rhodes, an Ottoman town inhabited by Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. Rhodes became a territory of Italy’s empire in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne, only one year after Mussolini seized power in Rome. The Ottoman demise corresponded to the expansion of fascist imperialism in the Mediterranean. Both the Ottoman Young Turks and Italian colonial governors invoked the role of a "new generation" of youth in imperial rule.

Generations of Empire investigates the relationship between state and society in light of successive transformations of imperial rule, rethinking Italian colonialism as post-Ottoman history. Andreas Guidi explores how communal life in the town of Rhodes was affected by the transition between these regimes, from an autocratic to a constitutional empire in late Ottoman years to Italian military occupation to fascist annexation. Based on archival sources in five languages from seven different countries, the book investigates generational dynamics in the domains of political activism, the family, education, work and leisure, and mobility. Generations of Empire offers a vivid picture of how a local society navigated large-scale social and political transformations in the modern Mediterranean.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487541293
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	10/03/2022
Series:	Toronto Italian Studies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Andreas Guidi is an associate professor at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris.

Table of Contents

Maps, Figures, and Tables
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Transliteration, Names, and Dates

Introduction  

1. The Emergence of Youth as a Political Category 

2. Where Families and Empires Meet 

3. New Schools, or How Youth Became Students 

4. A “Good Conduct” between Work and Leisure 

5. Generations, Mobility, and Shifting Limits of Belonging 

Epilogue: Imperial Coda

What People are Saying About This

Frederick Cooper

"Andreas Guidi's fine book on Rhodes under Ottoman and Italian rule puts the island in the context of Mediterranean history and contributes both to the growing literature on Italian colonialism and to inter-empire history. His story of the transition of rule by one empire to that of another illuminates both the ambitions and the limitations of imperial rulers' efforts to transform societies."

Pamela Ballinger

"Introducing the productive notion of 'imperial consequence,' Generations of Empire considers the Dodecanese Islands as a transimperial space historically shaped by practices of law, mobility, kinship, and confessional diversity. Situating Italian colonialism and fascism in a post-Ottoman frame, this study breaks important new ground in its analysis of how successive imperial regimes sought to anchor and discipline a fluid space and its diasporic populations through the discursive mobilization of '"youth."' Essential reading for scholars interested in questions of belonging, citizenship, religion, labour, and generations in the twentieth- century Mediterranean."

Editorial Reviews

"Andreas Guidi has succeeded in bringing together multiple fields and histories and in weaving together a complex and nuanced narrative…this is a fascinating and important work and a most welcome contribution to the scholarship."

—Nazan Maksudyan, Journal of Social History

"Andreas Guidi’s fine book on Rhodes under Ottoman and Italian rule puts the island in the context of Mediterranean history and contributes both to the growing literature on Italian colonialism and to inter-empire history. His story of the transition of rule by one empire to that of another illuminates both the ambitions and the limitations of imperial rulers’ efforts to transform societies."

—Frederick Cooper, Professor Emeritus of History, New York University

"Introducing the productive notion of ‘imperial consequence,’ Generations of Empire considers the Dodecanese Islands as a transimperial space historically shaped by practices of law, mobility, kinship, and confessional diversity. Situating Italian colonialism and fascism in a post-Ottoman frame, this study breaks important new ground in its analysis of how successive imperial regimes sought to anchor and discipline a fluid space and its diasporic populations through the discursive mobilization of ‘"youth."’ Essential reading for scholars interested in questions of belonging, citizenship, religion, labour, and generations in the twentieth- century Mediterranean."

—Pamela Ballinger, Fred Cuny Chair in the History of Human Rights and Professor of History, University of Michigan

From the Publisher

"Andreas Guidi has succeeded in bringing together multiple fields and histories and in weaving together a complex and nuanced narrative...this is a fascinating and important work and a most welcome contribution to the scholarship."

Journal of Social History - Nazan Maksudyan

"Andreas Guidi's fine book on Rhodes under Ottoman and Italian rule puts the island in the context of Mediterranean history and contributes both to the growing literature on Italian colonialism and to inter-empire history. His story of the transition of rule by one empire to that of another illuminates both the ambitions and the limitations of imperial rulers' efforts to transform societies."

Frederick Cooper

"Introducing the productive notion of 'imperial consequence,' Generations of Empire considers the Dodecanese Islands as a transimperial space historically shaped by practices of law, mobility, kinship, and confessional diversity. Situating Italian colonialism and fascism in a post-Ottoman frame, this study breaks important new ground in its analysis of how successive imperial regimes sought to anchor and discipline a fluid space and its diasporic populations through the discursive mobilization of '"youth."' Essential reading for scholars interested in questions of belonging, citizenship, religion, labour, and generations in the twentieth- century Mediterranean."

Pamela Ballinger