L'espace anachronique de la civilisation. La manipulation de l'histoire africaine dans l'imaginaire impérialiste européen

This essay explores the narrative syntax through which African history was manipulated—if not outright invented—by European writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their aim was both to legitimize overseas expansion and to construct and disseminate a shared consciousness of European racial superiority over African populations. In a context shaped by diffusionist theories and the scientific racism characteristic of the positivist milieu, the turn of the century saw the widespread mobilization of a pseudo-scientific historical imaginary designed to demonstrate the supposed absence of cultural production among African populations prior to European conquest. Following a genealogical examination of the "lost world" narrative device—originating in the British context but soon gaining international traction—the essay analyzes its reception in Italian colonial novels of the 1920s and 1930s. By comparing the genre’s early manifestations in the late 19th century with its consolidation during the Fascist Ventennio, the essay reveals the adaptability and resilience of an extraordinarily effective mythological machine.