This book considers the growing awareness in the wake of World War I that culture could play an effective political role in international relations. Tamara van Kessel shows how the British created the British Council in support of those cultural aims, which took on particular urgency in light of the rise of fascist dictatorships in Europe. Van Kessel focuses in particular on the activities of the British Council and the Italian Dante Alighieri Society in the Mediterranean area, where their respective country's strategic and ideological interests most evidently clashed.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The Development of Foreign Cultural Policy
- The Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein (1881) / Verein für das Deutschtum im Ausland (1908) and the Deutsche Akademie (1925)
- Uniting the Volksdeutschen
- Accommodating Hitler’s regime
- The Alliance Française (1883)
- Mission civilisatrice and France’s new orientation after 1870
- Greater involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the impact of the Great War
- The Dante Alighieri Society (1889)
- Italian irredentism, emigration, and national expansion
- Effects of the Italo-Turkish War and the First World War: Fascism and virulent nationalism
- Competition with the Fasci Italiani all’Estero and the Istituti di Cultura Italiana
- Intensification of cultural propaganda in the 1930s
- The British Council (1934)
- Cultural propaganda disavowed
- Counteraction to protect trade, territory, and democratic tradition
- Under the wing of the Foreign Office
- Conclusion
- 2. The Dante Alighieri Society and the British Council
- Agency and Independence
- Bridging two centuries: the Dante Alighieri Society
- Risorgimento and freemasonry
- From Risorgimento to Fascism: President Paolo Boselli as an icon of continuity
- Generational change
- Defending the last vestiges of independence
- After Boselli
- Superseded by the Istituti di Cultura
- The British Council: an offshoot of the Foreign Office
- Emergence in the age of ‘new diplomacy’
- ‘Effete’ officials
- Battling for independence from the Ministry of Information
- Conclusion
- 3. Constructions of ‘Italianità’ and ‘Britishness’
- Cultural pilgrimages across the Mediterranean
- Reviving the Roman past and honouring the Fallen Soldiers
- Cultural crusaders but also missionaries of modernity
- Italy’s natural claim on the Mediterranean
- The promise of a Pax Romana
- A Christian soul with a Mediterranean conscience
- The projection of Britishness
- Format and circulation of Britain To-day and British Life and Thought
- Britain and European or World Civilization
- Freedom, democracy, and peace
- The harmony of hierarchy
- Truth will triumph
- Conclusion
- 4. The Battle for Cultural Hegemony in Malta
- Malta: a chess piece in the Mediterranean
- The Dante Alighieri Society in Malta
- Indignation in the Dante’s publications
- Italian civilization in Malta: securing its place in Europe
- The British Council in Malta
- Establishing a British Institute
- The first Council lecture: self-government and liberty as British heritage
- A blessed Institute: dispelling suspicions of anti-Catholicism
- Conclusion
- 5. National Culture and Imperial Conquest
- The Dante Alighieri Society in Abyssinia and the British Council in Egypt
- The Dante Alighieri Society’s imperial dreams in Addis Ababa
- A new Dante Alighieri Committee in Addis Ababa
- Caught in practical obstacles
- The launch of the Dante library and of a spiritual mission
- Convoluted constructions
- Between great expectations and the reality of competing interests
- The British Council in Egypt: using the word instead of the sword
- Alarm about Latin dominance
- Keeping teachers and children British
- Education for Egyptian children
- A British Institute or an Anglo-Egyptian Society
- British Evening Institutes
- Calling for the use of new media
- Conclusion
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
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