'Natural' disasters, ignorance, and the mirage of Italian settler colonialism in late nineteenth-century Africa.

This article examines the origins and failure of Italian settler colonialism in the Horn of Africa, focusing on the 1896 Battle of Adwa, through the lens of environmental history and the cultural production of ignorance. It argues that Italy’s colonial ambitions were based on an "imperial mirage"—the mistaken belief that Ethiopia’s temporarily depopulated and ecologically disrupted highlands, caused by a combination of climate variability, the introduction of rinderpest by Italians, and ensuing famine, would be available for European settlement. Italian elites selectively ignored or suppressed knowledge of their role in these socio-ecological disasters, fueling misguided settler colonial projects that underestimated Ethiopian resilience and contributed to Italy’s military defeat. The article situates Italian colonialism within broader European imperialism while highlighting how environmental factors and fragmented colonial knowledge shaped Italy’s failed attempt to establish a settler colony in Africa.