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Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya: An Ambivalent Modernism (Studies in Modernity and National Identity)

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To be a tourist in Libya all through 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, in addition to new hierarchies of political and social regulate. Architecture and Tourism in Italian Colonial Libya shows how Italian authorities used the contradictory forces of tradition and modernity to both legitimize their colonial enterprise and construct a vital tourist industry. Even supposing most tourists sought to escape the trappings of the metropole in favor of experiencing “difference,” that difference was almost at all times framed, contained, and even defined by Western culture.

McLaren argues that the “modern” and the “traditional” were entirely constructed by colonial authorities, who balanced their wish to project an image of a modern and efficient network of go back and forth and accommodation with the necessity of preserving the characteristic qualities of the indigenous culture. What made the tourist experience in Libya distinct from that of other tourist destinations was the constant oscillation between modernizing and preservation tendencies. The movement between these forces is reflected in the structure of the book, which proceeds from the broadest level of inquiry into the Fascist colonial project in Libya to the tourist organization itself, and in any case into the architecture of the tourist environment, offering a way of viewing state-driven modernization projects and notions of modernity from a historical and geographic perspective.

This is a very powerful book for architectural historians and for those interested in colonial and postcolonial studies, in addition to Italian studies, African history, literature, and cultural studies more in most cases.

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