Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya: An Ambivalent Modernism

“A magnificent and scholarly work… illustrated with architectural drawings, old photographs, and reproductions of tourist brochures, posters, and postcards.” International Journal of Middle East StudiesTo be a tourist in Libya during the period of Italian colonization was to experience a complex negotiation of cultures. Against a sturdy backdrop of indigenous culture and architecture, modern metropolitan culture brought its systems of transportation and accommodation, as well as new hierarchies of political and social control. Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya show how Italian authorities used the contradictory forces of tradition and modernity to both legitimize their colonial enterprise and construct a vital tourist industry.