[Sci-tech-public] MIT Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History (SEAH) : November 7, 2025

[Kathleen Lopes]

Please join us for the first SEAH of the Fall 2025 semester. This event will be held in a hybrid format, allowing participants to join in person or via Zoom.
Prior registration is required to join via zoom.

The "Scientific Conquest of the Empire": Fascist Infrastructures and Italian science in Ethiopia (1935-1940)
Angelo Caglioti , Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University

Friday, November 7, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Hybrid Event
MIT Campus, Building E51, Room 285

Register Here : https://mit.zoom.us/meeting/register/aszMFXTySI6g_8QraysEBw

The "Scientific Conquest of the Empire": Fascist Science and Infrastructures of the Italian Occupation of Ethiopia(1935-1940)
Fascism claimed to offer a third way between Capitalism and Communism since the end of the Great War. However, Mussolini’s first step to challenge the international world order was the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. The Fascist regime aimed to achieve three key objectives in Ethiopia: autarky (self-sufficiency), corporatism (a planned economy that coordinated private interests with national priorities), and settler colonialism to expand Italy’s “vital space” in Africa. Even before the country's complete military occupation, Italian scientists, engineers, and colonial experts were expected to contribute to these goals through “the scientific conquest of empire.”
This talk examines the relationship between Italian scientists and fascist imperialism in three areas crucial for the remaking of Ethiopia: the development of transportation and water infrastructure, the production of energy, and the study of the region's climate for agricultural plantations and human settlements. Building on the approach of environ-tech scholarship, I examine the gap between experience and expectations of Italian colonialism to explain how the war in Ethiopia radicalized and disillusioned Italian scientists.




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/sci-tech-public/attachments/20251105/d0cc3438/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: SEAH FALL 2025-3.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 260431 bytes
Desc: SEAH FALL 2025-3.pdf
URL: <http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/sci-tech-public/attachments/20251105/d0cc3438/attachment-0001.pdf>