Foreign cultural policy in the interbellum : the Italian Dante Alighieri Society and the British Council contesting the Mediterranean /

Kessel, Tamara van,

Foreign cultural policy in the interbellum : the Italian Dante Alighieri Society and the British Council contesting the Mediterranean / Tamara van Kessel. - Amsterdam : Amsterdam University Press, (c)2016. - 1 online resource (256 pages) : illustrations. - Heritage and memory studies ; 2 .

Includes bibliographies and index.

Introduction -- The development of foreign cultural policy -- The Dante Alighieri Society and the British Council -- Constructions of 'Italianità' and 'Britishness' -- The battle for cultural hegemony in Malta -- National culture and imperial conquest -- Conclusion.

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. --



9789048527410 9048527414


Società Dante Alighieri.
British Council.


Electronic Books.

DA47 / .F674 2016